In the Interest of J.B.

In 2009, C.B. (an adult male), along with his fiancee K.M.H (“the victim”) and her two daughters, J.H. (age 7) and A.H (age 4), and C.B.’s 11-year-old son J.B. were living together in a two-story rented house in a rural area surrounded by farmland and woods, and situated near the town of Wampum. K.M.H. was found dead with a single shotgun wound to the head shortly after C.B. had left for work for and J.H. and C.B. had left for school. K.M.H. was pregnant at the time of her death. The focus of the police investigation turned from K.M.H.'s ex-boyfriend to J.B., when police found that the ballistics of the shotgun pellets found in the victim matched that found on the shotgun seized from the residence. It was determined that J.B. had learned how to shoot this gun for hunting, and that the clothes J.B. wore to school the morning of the shooting had trace gunshot residue on them. The juvenile court issued written findings of fact adjudicating J.B. delinquent of criminal homicide for the death of K.M.H. and of her unborn child. J.B. filed a notice of appeal from the dispositional order, following which the juvenile court directed J.B. to prepare and file a statement of matters complained of on appeal. The juvenile court did not find J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim waived due to his failure to file a post-dispositional motion. Instead, the juvenile court ruled that J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim had been “adequately addressed . . . in its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law issued on April 13, 2012 and supplemental Opinion issued on April 20, 2012.” The Supreme Court found that J.B. faced procedural rules that made optional the filing of a post-dispositional motion, and which did not otherwise specify how a weight of the evidence claim was to be presented in the first instance to the juvenile court in order to preserve it for appellate review. Furthermore, J.B. presented his weight of the evidence claim to the lower court by raising it in his Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement, in which he comprehensively set forth specific reasons why, in his view, the juvenile court’s adjudication was against the weight of the evidence. The Supreme Court concluded that a finding of J.B.’s weight of the evidence claim to be waived under the circumstances of this case would have been manifestly unjust. The Court remanded this case back to the juvenile court to allow J.B. to file a post-dispositional motion nunc pro tunc. View "In the Interest of J.B." on Justia Law