United States v. John Doe, a Juvenile

This is an appeal from a judgment of juvenile delinquency under the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 5031-5042 . The primary question for decision is whether the district court should have dismissed the information for violation of the special speedy trial provision of the Delinquency Act, 18 U.S.C. § 5036 . The answer depends on the date on which the 30-day clock of § 5036 began to run. We join our sister circuits that have addressed the question and hold that time begins to run at the commencement of federal detention of the juvenile on the federal delinquency charge. By that calculation, there was no violation of § 5036 in this case and we accordingly affirm the district court’s ruling.

A second issue that we must resolve concerns one of the requirements of § 5032 of the Delinquency Act. The section provides, in pertinent part, that no hearing shall be held for disposition of a juvenile after a finding of delinquency “until any prior juvenile court records of such juvenile have been received by the court, or the clerk of the juvenile court has certified in writing that the juvenile has no prior record, or that the juvenile’s record is unavailable and why it is…