Gabriela A’s Actions Constituted Disobedience Under PINS Criteria, Not Criminal Actions (Resisting Arrest/Obstruction of Governmental Administration) Under Juvenile Delinquency Criteria

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Read, over a dissent, determined, under the facts,  a “Person In Need of Supervision (PINS)” should not have been adjudicated a juvenile delinquent.  Gabriela A., a PINS who had left the non-secure facility where she was placed, apparently resisted to some extent when police officers came to return her to the facility. After the fact-finding hearing, Gabriela A was placed in a secure facility pending disposition. Family Court ultimately determined Gabriela A was a juvenile delinquent finding Gabriele A had committed acts, which, if committed by an adult, would constitute the criminal offenses of obstruction of governmental administration and resisting arrest. The Court of Appeals did not rule out the procedure used by Family Court, which essentially converted a PINS proceeding to a Juvenile delinquency proceeding. Rather, the court determined, under the facts, Gabriela A’s behavior was properly characterized as PINS behavior, not criminal behavior:

The crime of resisting arrest requires that a person intentionally prevent “an authorized arrest” (Penal Law § 205.30). The restraint of a PINS pursuant to Family Court Act § 718, however, is not the same as a criminal arrest … . A PINS proceeding is fundamentally civil in nature. … Thus, a PINS who resists being restrained or transported back to a placement facility is not resisting arrest within the meaning of Penal Law § 205.30.

Next, a person is guilty of the misdemeanor of obstructing governmental administration when he or she “intentionally obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental function or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from performing an official function, by means of intimidation, physical force or interference” (Penal Law § 195.05). Probation officers qualify as “public servants” within the broad definition supplied in the Penal Law (see Penal Law § 10.00 [15]), and Gabriela A. admitted that she wanted to “make it hard” for Officer Flores and the other probation officers to handcuff and take her to the non-secure facility. On the other hand, the legislature has defined a PINS to include someone who is “habitually disobedient and beyond the lawful control of . . . lawful authority” (Family Court Act § 712 [a]). Thus, a PINS’s disobedience and obstruction of “lawful authority” is not necessarily the same as an adult’s. Since Family Court Act §§ 720 (1) and (2) forbid placement of a PINS in a secure facility, the legislature surely did not intend the type of behavior that might cause a child to be designated a PINS in the first place to become the basis for secure detention … .  Matter of Gabriela A, 2014 NY Slip Op 02376, CtApp, 4-8-14