After Probation Term Expires, Juvenile Court Lacks Jurisdiction to Order Restitution

In the Matter of the Welfare of:  H.A.D., Child, Minn.S.Ct., 4/16/2009.  A year, it's reassuring to know, is just that.  A juvenile court placed H.A.D. on probation for one year after she pleaded guilty to fifth degree assault.  The juvenile court said that "As long as [H.A.D.} is on probation a claim for restitution can be filed."  This opened the floodgates for several requests for restitution.  By the time all the paperwork hit the clerk's office, poor H.A.D. was looking at nearly six thousand dollars in restitution request.

Fortunately for H.A.D., (but not so much for the likes of Blue Cross Blue Shied, one of the restitution supplicants), the juvenile court did not actually order payment of even a single dollar during the one year term of probation.  The paperwork was there but no order. This should have been the end of it, but the juvenile court had tried to extend that original one year term in order to impose the restitution.  It's that extension that is in play here.   The reasoning gets a little tricky so let's start a new paragraph.

The court's disposition order was dated March 20, 2006.  (On March 23, 2006, the court issued its written disposition order (which was totally silent about restitution), but everyone agreed that the one year term of probation began on March 20, 2006.)  On March 20, 2007, the juvenile court issued an order which extended H.A.D.'s probation term for another six months.  The restitution order followed on June 6, 2007.  So, if the extension order of March 20, 2007 was valid, then H.A.D. is on the hook for that lucre. 

The state suggested that the year didn't end until March 20, 2007.  By this logic, any January 1 is actually part of the previous year.  This court dismisses this suggestion and holds that the  extension order was not valid.  The one year term ended on March 19, 2007, not on March 20.  The juvenile court's authority to extend probation expired when the probation term ended.  Minn.Stat. 260B.198, Subd. 9.  As a result, the court lacked any authority act.  After all, the Supreme Court explained, "expressio unius [est] exclusio alterius."    Really, it's what they said.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it is.  The Court of Appeals had basically this same jurisdictional question a couple of weeks back.  Go here to read about that.

Okay, okay, want to know what the Latin means?  Nelson v. Productive Alternatives, Inc., 715 N.W.2d 452, 457 (Minn. 2006) (explaining the canon of statutory construction “expressio unius [est] exclusio alterius,” meaning the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another).

Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.
J. D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye.