People v. Superior Court

Each of these cases presents two issues. The first issue is whether a prior juvenile adjudication of robbery (Pen. Code, § 211) constitutes a strike offense within the meaning of the “Three Strikes” law (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12) in cases where the prior adjudication occurred before robbery was added to the list of offenses in Welfare and Institutions Code section 707, subdivision (b) by the passage of Proposition 21 on March 7, 2000, but the current offense was committed after that date. The second issue is whether any prior juvenile adjudication may constitutionally be used as a strike in light of the fact that there is no right to a jury trial in juvenile proceedings.

In each case, the trial court determined that the defendants’ prior juvenile adjudications for robbery did not qualify as strikes because robbery was not included in the list of offenses in Welfare and Institutions Code section 707, subdivision (b) at the time of the defendant’s prior juvenile adjudication. The trial courts therefore dismissed the strike allegations on that basis and did not reach the second issue, whether the use of a prior juvenile adjudication as a strike is constitutional.

We…