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Committee hears bill to remove juvenile crime for refusing to pay fines
Summary
LD 2126, presented by Senator Anne Carney, seeks to correct a drafting error that turned failure-to-pay or comply into a discrete juvenile crime; the Department of Corrections and the Prosecutors Association support elimination in favor of contempt remedies already available to juvenile courts.
Senator Anne Carney introduced LD 2126 as a Department of Corrections bill intended to correct an inconsistency in last year's statutes that inadvertently created a juvenile crime for conduct that is not a separate adult offense.
"A crime that would not be a crime if committed by an adult should not be a crime for a juvenile either," Jill O'Brien, director of government affairs for the Department of Corrections, told the committee in support. She testified the bill removes duplicative language and preserves contempt and other juvenile-court enforcement mechanisms already available under Title 15.
Committee members asked for examples and clarification about how contempt powers and enforcement would operate in practice. O'Brien explained contempt remains available to enforce court orders and that the goal is parity with adult treatment — resolving the drafting error while keeping existing contempt procedures that can include detention or other sanctions as appropriate in juvenile court. Senators and representatives asked for the statutory language and a bill analysis ahead of a work session so members could review the cross-references to Title 12 and Title 29.
The chair closed the public hearing and indicated the committee would circulate the statute references and convene a work session to finalize language.
Next steps: staff will circulate the statute and bill analysis for the work session; committee indicated there is likely broad support among stakeholders for correcting the drafting error.
