Latest 2 Cases: D.P. v. State (Criminal Law), Humphrey v. Tuck (Personal Injury)

The Right to Be Judged by What You Do, Not Who You Are

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb considers the case for occasionally including status—“who you are”—in assigning blame in criminal matters. Colb explains that generally, our penal system prohibits “status offenses,” but sometimes, such as in the case of psychopaths, we are comfortable deciding how to punish a person based at least in part on who they are.

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D.P. v. State

Docket: 20S-JV-443

Opinion Date: September 8, 2020

Judge: Loretta H. Rush

Areas of Law: Criminal Law, Juvenile Law

In these consolidated appeals, the Supreme Court held that under the clear and unambiguous language of several relevant statutes, a juvenile court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to waive two individuals into adult criminal court because neither fit the definition of a "child" at the time their respective delinquency petitions were filed. The State filed juvenile delinquency petitions against D.P. and N.B. for committing, when they were under the age of eighteen, what would be felony child molesting if committed by an adult. Both individuals were twenty-one or older at the time the delinquency petitions were filed. The State requested that D.P. and N.B. be waived into adult criminal court, and D.P. and N.B. moved to dismiss their respective cases for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The motion to dismiss was denied in D.P.'s case and was granted in N.B.'s case. The Supreme Court affirmed the juvenile court's dismissal in N.B. and reversed in D.P. and remanded with instructions to grant the motion to dismiss, holding that a juvenile court does not have subject matter jurisdiction to waive an alleged delinquent offender into adult criminal court if the individual is no longer a "child."

Humphrey v. Tuck

Docket: 20S-CT-548

Opinion Date: September 8, 2020

Judge: Slaughter

Areas of Law: Personal Injury

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court awarding Plaintiff $40,000 in this personal injury action, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in giving a failure to mitigate instruction. Plaintiff brought this action alleging negligence and respondeat superior against Defendants claiming that a vehicle accident caused a preexisting tumor in his eye to swell in size. At the conclusion of the evidence, Defendants asked for a jury instruction on failure to mitigate damages. The trial court gave the requested instruction. The trial court awarded Plaintiff $40,000. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the mitigation instruction was unsupported by the evidence. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in giving a failure to mitigate instruction.