Error and/or relief
We reverse the juvenile court’s transfer order and remand for a new hearing and ruling on the district attorney’s transfer motion.
First Holding:
The ultimate question for the juvenile court in a transfer petition is whether a minor is amenable to rehabilitation before the juvenile court’s jurisdiction expires. To order a minor’s transfer to a court of criminal jurisdiction, the juvenile court must find by clear and convincing evidence that the minor is not amenable to rehabilitation while under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.
Authority:
WIC 707(a)(3)
Cal. Rules of Court, rule 5.770(a), (b)
In re J.S. (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 205, 212
In re E.P. (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 409, 416
Second Holding:
In making that determination, the juvenile court must consider five specific criteria: (1) the degree of criminal sophistication exhibited by the minor; (2) whether the minor can be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court’s jurisdiction; (3) the minor’s previous delinquent history; (4) success of previous attempts by the juvenile court to rehabilitate the minor; and (5) the circumstances and gravity of the offense alleged in the petition to have been committed by the minor.
Welfare and Institutions Code section 707(a)(3) also sets forth a nonexhaustive list of relevant factors for the juvenile court to consider with respect to each of the five criteria.
Authority:
In re J.S. (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 205, 212
Third Holding:
The allegation that a minor committed a serious offense, including murder, does not automatically require a finding of unfitness. Rather, in evaluating this criterion, a juvenile court may rely on evidence that, while not justifying or excusing the crime, tends to lessen its magnitude.
Authority:
Kevin P. v. Superior Court (2020) 57 Cal.App.5th 173, 189
Fourth Holding:
A juvenile court can retain jurisdiction over a minor as described in section 602 for the offense of murder until he or she attains 25 years of age, or upon the expiration of a two-year period of control, whichever occurs later.
In determining whether the minor can be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court’s jurisdiction, ‘the juvenile court shall give weight to any relevant factor, including, but not limited to, the minor’s potential to grow and mature.
Expert witnesses may testify on the issue of the availability of treatment programs in the juvenile court system and the amenability of the minor to those programs.
Authority:
In re J.S. (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 205, 213
Fifth Holding:
A minor’s amenability to rehabilitation is the central and dispositive question in proceedings under section 707, and the juvenile court’s analysis of the section 707 criteria must be focused through the lens of amenability to rehabilitation.
Authority:
In re O.F. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 133, 161–162
In re S.S. (2023) 89 Cal.App.5th 1277, 1288, superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in In re J.M. (2024) 103 Cal.App.5th 745, 751–753
Sixth Holding:
We review the juvenile court’s ruling on a transfer motion for abuse of discretion. The lower court’s findings of fact are reviewed for substantial evidence, its conclusions of law de novo, and its application of the law to the facts is reversible only if arbitrary and capricious.
The court’s ultimate finding that the minor is not amenable to rehabilitation while under its jurisdiction is also reviewed for substantial evidence. In conducting substantial evidence review, we draw all reasonable inferences in support of the court’s findings.
Moreover, a trial court abuses its discretion when its factual findings are not supported by the evidence, or its decision is based on an incorrect legal standard.
Authority:
In re O.F. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 133, 160
People v. Thai (2023) 90 Cal.App.5th 427, 433
Seventh Holding:
When reviewing a finding that a fact has been proved by clear and convincing evidence, the question before the appellate court is whether the record as a whole contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could have found it highly probable that the fact was true.
The clear and convincing evidence standard requires a finding of high probability. The evidence must be so clear as to leave no substantial doubt; sufficiently strong to command the unhesitating assent of every reasonable mind.
Authority:
In re O.F. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 133, 160–161
Eighth Holding:
The court’s reliance on uncertainty born out of the district attorney’s limited proof about why the minor would not accept or respond to the available treatment that the probation department believed would prepare the minor for re-entry into the community resulted in an improper shift of the burden from the district attorney to show the minor’s unamenability to the minor to show his amenability to rehabilitation.
This shift amounts to an abuse of discretion based on the application of an incorrect legal standard. Given that the juvenile court improperly applied the burden of proof in deciding that the minor is not amenable to rehabilitation while under the court’s jurisdiction, we agree with the minor that the court’s order granting the transfer motion must be reversed and the matter remanded for a new transfer hearing.
Authority:
J.N. v. Superior Court (2018) 23 Cal.App.5th 706, 722 [holding there was an abuse of discretion where there was no evidence that demonstrated existing programs were unlikely to result in the minor’s rehabilitation, why they were unlikely to work in this case, or that they would take more than three years to accomplish the task of rehabilitating minor]
People v. Centeno (2014) 60 Cal.4th 659, 673 [The prosecution cannot suggest that deficiencies in the defense case can make up for shortcomings in its own]