State v. B.Y.

Juvenile courts lack the authority to impose consecutive commitments. Juvenile courts, like adult courts, do not possess the unlimited authority to impose consecutive commitments.

B.Y. appealed “a dispositional judgment committing him to . . . a youth correction facility for one year.” B.Y. assigned error to the trial court’s order to run the commitment consecutively to commitments from prior cases and imposition of a one-year commitment. On appeal, B.Y. argued that the juvenile court must act pursuant only to explicit dispositional authority in the juvenile code and noted that there was no authority to impose consecutive commitments. In response, the state argued “that the legislature’s silence” on consecutive commitments does not mean the juvenile courts lack the authority to impose them and noted that the juvenile code has previously been interpreted to allow consecutive commitments under a prior version of ORS 419C.501. Juvenile courts lack the authority to impose consecutive commitments. The Court reasoned that the legislature’s actions to limit the inherent authority of adult courts to impose consecutive sentences and separation of any previous link between the juvenile and adult courts’ dispositional authorities suggests that juvenile courts, like adult courts, do not possess the unlimited authority to impose consecutive commitments. The Court also determined that increasing “a juvenile’s maximum exposure to commitment time while limiting that exposure in adult courts” would be contrary to the juvenile courts’ reformative purpose. Without authorization to impose consecutive commitments, the juvenile court lacks the authority to do so. Reversed and remanded for reconsideration of disposition; otherwise affirmed.