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2000 Iowa Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2000)

handle is hein.sag/sagia0004 and id is 1 raw text is: Office of the Attorney General State of Iowa *1 Opinion No. 00-1-1(L) January 18, 2000 JUVENILE LAW: Disposition of child found to have committed a delinquent act. +Iowa Code 4 232.52(2)(e(4) (1999)+. Section 232.52(2)(e)(4) provides two criteria for placement in a state training school: 1) the child must have been previously placed in a treatment facility outside the home, or 2) the child must have previously been placed in a supervised community treatment program as the result of a prior delinquency adjudication. The placement in a treatment facility outside the home need not have been because of a delinquency adjudication. (Phillips to Bozwell, Appanoose County Attorney, 1-18-00) Mr. Robert F. Bozwell, Jr. Appanoose County Attorney Appanoose County Courthouse Centerville, IA 52544 Dear Mr. Bozwell: You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General relating to +Iowa Code section 232.52 (2)(e)(j999) +. This section sets forth the conditions that must exist before the juvenile court may place a child in the state training school or other facility. Under this section the court may make a placement if any three of the four listed conditions are found to exist. Prior to 1997, Iowa Code section 232.52(2)(e)(4) read as follows: (4) The child has previously been placed in a treatment facility outside the child's home. In 1997, the section was amended to provide: (4) The child has previously been placed in a treatment facility outside the child's home or in a supervised community treatment program established pursuant to section 232.191, subsection 4, as a result of a prior delinquency adjudication. Iowa Code 4 232.52(2)(e)(4)(1997) amended by 1997 Iowa Acts, ch. 51, section 1 (amended language underlined). Your inquiry focuses on the first part of the condition, the part allowing placement if the child has previously been placed in a treatment facility. You have inquired whether the meaning of that part has been changed by the addition of the second part allowing placement at the training school if the child has been previously placed in a supervised community treatment program established pursuant to section 232.191, subsection 4, as a result of a prior delinquency adjudication. Specifically, you have inquired, whether the placement in a treatment facility outside the child's home must have been because of a prior delinquency adjudication, or may have been for some other reason, such as a Child In Need of Assistance or mental health proceeding? Resolution of this issue affects standards for admission to the training school. If the delinquency adjudication language is read to modify the first, original condition, then, to some extent, the amended language tightens standards for admission to the training school by requiring a delinquency adjudication prior to placement in a treatment facility, when an adjudication was not previously required as a condition precedent. If the language is not read to modify the original condition, then the amendment serves to expand admission standards by adding an additional or alternative condition justifying the placement of a juvenile at the state training school. *2 In our opinion the second interpretation described above is the more sound. Under this interpretation the amended language was intended to expand admission standards by providing a new alternative condition justifying admission to the training school and should not be viewed as modifying the original placement criteria. On its face the amended statute can be read as either requiring or not requiring a child's placement in a treatment facility to have been the result of a prior delinquency adjudication. The language of the amendment may fairly be said to have created an ambiguity in the statute. See State v. Rodgers 560 N.W.2d 585, 586 (Iowa 1997) (providing that a statute is ambiguous if it is susceptible to more than one meaning). Because of this ambiguity, recourse may be had to the rules of statutory construction in interpreting the statute. +Iowa Code q 4.6 (1999)+; Rodgers, supra, 560 N.W.2d at 586. These rules suggest that the phrase, as a result of a prior delinquency adjudication was meant to qualify only the phrase, supervised community treatment program and not to qualify, a treatment facility outside the child's home. According to the doctrine of the last preceding antecedent, qualifying words and phrases, ordinarily refer only to the immediately preceding antecedent. State v. Kluesner, 389 N.W.2d 370, 371 (Iowa 1986). This doctrine suggests that the phrase, as a result of a prior delinquency adjudication, should be read to refer only to the immediately preceding antecedent, a supervised community treatment program established pursuant to section 232.191, subsection 4, and not to the first antecedent, in a treatment facility outside the child's

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