Yuma attorney lobbying to change law following client’s conviction
Yuma attorney Jeremy Claridge has recently written a letter to the Arizona Legislature and governor seeking a change in the law in how adults are prosecuted for delinquent sex crimes they committed when they themselves were young children.
In the four-page letter, Claridge cites the case of one of his clients, 23-year-old Jose Adrian Agundez-Martinez, who has been sentenced to 51 years in prison in such a case.
Agundez-Martinez was found guilty of three counts of molestation of a child and two counts of sexual conduct with a minor following a trial in August in Yuma County Superior Court. However, he was 12 when he committed the crimes.
Calling it problematic and contradictory, Claridge argues that the statute of limitations for these types of crimes needs to be reformed so what happened to his client doesn’t happen again.
“This issue is of state-wide concern and that is why I am calling upon you to reform our laws to prevent a bad situation from becoming worse,” Claridge wrote. “I hope by the end of this letter that you will see, as I do, how the statute of limitations can be improved, as it pertains to prosecuting adults for things they did as young children.”
The law, as currently written, defines delinquent sex acts as offenses that can be prosecuted at “any time,” and no distinction is made between a minor and an adult.
There are, however, certain protections for minors so that their cases can remain in Juvenile Court, which is where Claridge believes Agundez-Martinez’s should have been adjudicated, due to his age at the time of the crimes.
For example, in order for an offender who is 14 years old or older at the time of the commission of the delinquent sex acts to be charged as an adult, prosecutors must file what is known as a “direct file” to have the case transferred to Superior Court.
Additionally, if the offender is under the age of 13, prosecutors can petition the Juvenile Court for a transfer hearing.
The inconsistency, according to Claridge, is there are currently no provisions in the law that would allow an adult who has been charged with delinquent sex acts that were committed as a child to have the case resolved in Juvenile Court.
As such, Claridge says the issue raises the legal question of how to proceed if the crimes are not reported until after the offender is 18, the age at which they are considered adults and can be charged as such.
“The act that was committed by the juvenile under age 14 was a delinquent act and not a crime because there was no transfer hearing,” Claridge wrote. “This sounds like an ex post facto law as it severely changes the legal consequence of Mr. Agundez’s actions done as a child, solely by virtue of him turning 18.”
This is what happened in the case of Agundez-Martinez, and Claridge contends that his client should not have been prosecuted as an adult more than a decade after he committed the crimes as a juvenile.
He further contends that under the law, if applied literally, the other children in his client’s case could also have been charged for committing delinquent sex acts because they were willing participants. Instead they were designated as victims.
“The determination of which child should be severely punished and which child should be protected arbitrarily and capriciously rests solely with the prosecutor,” Claridge wrote in his letter.
Claridge said that in order to make the law consistent, the statute of limitations needs to be changed to add language that states adults who have been charged in these types of cases are entitled to a transfer hearing in Juvenile Court.
Not having a transfer hearing, Claridge argued, constituted a violation of his client’s rights to due process since he was a minor at the time.
Claridge added that had his client’s case been adjudicated in Juvenile Court instead of Superior Court, the sentence his client received would not have been as severe.
Agundez-Martinez was arrested on June 3, 2019, after three individuals who are now ages 16, 18, and 20 came forward and told San Luis police that when they were children, and being babysat by his mother at their home, he would sexually molest them.
When the case was initially presented to the Yuma County Grand Jury, the prosecution did not include that Agundez-Martinez was 12 years old at the time.
Claridge says not doing so was highly prejudicial to his client because it misled members of the grand jury to believe that the person being accused was an adult and not a child.
He further contends that the grand jury did not receive a proper explanation of the law when the case was presented to it, because if it had, it would have been included in the transcripts of the proceedings, and it was not.
Claridge tried to have the case remanded back to the grand jury last year for a new determination of probable cause, based on these two issues, but the Yuma Superior Court Court judge presiding over the case denied the request.
He then filed a motion with the Arizona Court of Appeals for a Special Action to reverse the Superior Court’s decision, but it ruled neither issue amounted to what was a reversible error.