i just had a court trial for the offense of racing on a highway, class b misdemeanor. the court ruled in favor of the lesser included offense of attempted racing, which would be class c. defense counsel is arguing that this lesser included meets the definition of a traffic offense and is not within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.

has anyone dealt with a situation like this? i think my argument is going to be that jurisdiction of the original offense includes jurisdiction of any lesser included offense. any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

As long as the charging instrument alleges crime that falls within the court's jurisdiction, then you've invoked the jurisdiction enough to stay in that court. It doesn't matter if one of the possible lessers would fall in another court. Felony agg assaults frequently have misdemeanor assaults as lessers, and that doesn't knock the case down to county court.

I agree with the defense attorney. The juvenile court does not have jurisdiction over class C's. Without researching, and off the top of my head, I offer as authority the definition of traffic offense, the definitions in 51.03 of delinquent conduct, and the parallel situation where in a determinate case, if the child is found guilty of a lesser that takes it out of the list of offenses for determinate, then it becomes a regular juvenile case, not determinate. I know there is a case out there where the child was found guilty of failure to stop and render aid in a traffic fatality (back before ANY traffic offenses were juvenile offenses) and under the argument that this offense carried as the penalty of imprisonment or confinement in jail they heard it as a juvenile delinquency offense. It was reversed because under the law at that time FSRA was a "traffic offense" and thus, the juvenile court had no jurisdiction.