Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania

Use Of Juvenile Records in Adult Cases

I was interested in finding out if a Juvenile record can be used in sentencing of a crime committed 18 years later. When the defendent was 15 yrs old there was an apparent burglury charge on his record. It is possible that it was a felony burglury charge. Now 18 years later with another burglury charge that the defendent was found guilty of can that juvenile charge be brought before the judge to make it a longer sentence. It was going to be a 18-24 month sentence before the DA deceided to bring the juvenile record up. Now the DA is asking for 5-10yrs with the juvenile record. Is this allowed. If so how?


Asked on 4/05/06, 3:08 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jay Hochberg

Re: Use Of Juvenile Records in Adult Cases

A juvenile record may always be "used" at sentencing in the sense that the prosecutor can call the judge's attention to the case as an aggravating factor. The real question is whether the prior juvenile adjudication is used in the computation of the prior record score - if so, then the sentencing guidelines move up dramatically. If not, then the judge is still working within the same framework as before. Given that the defendant is over the age of 28, the only way that the prior burglary really counts is if that burglary involved a house where a person was actually home at the time of the burglary. Unless the government proves those circumstances in the prior case, the prior case does not affect the guidelines on the current case.

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Answered on 4/05/06, 3:40 pm


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