In re T.S.
Filed 12/11/12 In
re T.S. CA1/3
OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits
courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
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publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
In re T.S., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and
Respondent,
v.
T.S.,
Defendant and Appellant.
A134599 & A135381
(Contra Costa County
Super. Ct. No.
J1100077)
T.S.
appeals from a dispositional order of the juvenile court that placed him in
juvenile hall subject to a subsequent status review. We dismiss his appeal as moot because T.S.
was released from juvenile hall in August 2012 and we can grant no effective
relief.
The particulars of T.S.’s
offenses are not relevant to the issues before us, which concern the propriety
of the juvenile court’s decision to place him in juvenile hall. It suffices to pick up the narrative at the
dispositional hearing on February 2, 2012, when the court
committed T.S. to the Orin Allen Youth Rehabilitation Facility for a period not
to exceed nine months. T.S. filed a
timely notice of appeal from this
order.
In
April 2012, while T.S.’s first appeal was pending,
necessitated removing T.S. from the Orin Allen facility or any other outdoor,
ranch-like setting until the fall, after the end of allergy season. On April 27, the court ordered that T.S. be
placed in juvenile hall and set a six-month status review hearing for August
2. T.S. filed a second timely appeal
from this modified disposition, which we consolidated with his prior appeal.
T.S.
was released to his mother on August 2.
T.S. asserts that long-term
commitment to juvenile hall is unauthorized by statute and, in this case, was
an abuse of discretion because the court failed to first establish there were
no other placement options within the county.
He also maintains his placement was an abuse of discretion because there
was insufficient evidence that it served a rehabilitative purpose. We will not resolve these contentions
because, as T.S. concedes, his August 2 release rendered his claims moot. “ ‘As a general rule, an appellate court
only decides actual controversies. It is
not the function of the appellate court to render opinions
“ ‘ “ ‘upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or
. . . declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the
matter in issue in the case before it.’ †’ â€
. . . . “[A] case becomes
moot when a court ruling can have no practical effect or cannot provide the
parties with effective relief.†’ â€
(People v. Gregerson (2011) 202 Cal.App.4th 306, 321;
Cal.App.4th 1314, 1324.)
T.S.
urges us to nonetheless entertain this appeal because whether juvenile courts
may properly order long-term juvenile hall placements of six months or more is
a question of broad public interest that is capable of repetition but likely to
evade review. (See, e.g., State of
Cal. ex rel. State Lands Com. v. Superior Court (1995) 11 Cal.4th 50, 61.) This is so, he
argues, because his own confinement did not last long enough for the appellate
process to work its course. We disagree.
Notably,
T.S.’s only support for this position is In
re Christina A. (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1153, 1159, a case the appellate
court found qualified for the “capable of repetition, yet evading reviewâ€
exception to the general bar against deciding moot cases. But, Christina
A. is inapposite. The alleged error
there concerned whether the six-month review period in certain dependency cases
runs from the jurisdictional hearing or the dispositional hearing. Although the review hearing in
was pending, the appellate court recognized that the brief time period before
the six-month review is held under either scenario will generally prevent
appellate resolution of the issue before the review hearing can take place. Accordingly, the appellate court exercised
its discretion to address the issue even though the hearing in that particular
case had come and gone. (
This
is not such a case. T.S. is complaining
not about when his six-month review hearing was held, but rather that he was
given a lengthy commitment to juvenile hall instead of a less restrictive
placement. Nothing in the nature of his
claims is inherently related to the short duration of his actual confinement
there or precludes their being raised in other cases by juvenile offenders with
longer commitments. Moreover, it is
possible that the outcome of the issue T.S. urges us to consider may be
affected by the circumstances of the particular case. As there is no apparent reason to believe the
issues T.S. raises are likely to evade appellate review, we dismiss his appeal
for mootness.
The appeal is dismissed.
_________________________
Siggins,
J.
We concur:
_________________________
McGuiness, P.J.
_________________________
Pollak, J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] We grant the People’s request for judicial notice of the minute
order in this case filed October 4, 2012.
(See Evid. Code, §§ 452 subd. (d)(1), 459.)
