EGAR v. Superior Court

Opinion

YEGAN, J.

Penal Code section 1465.8, in pertinent part, provides for the imposition of a $20 court security fee for “every conviction for a criminal offense, including a traffic offense . . . ."

1

Emily S. and Cameron V.,

[1308]

both minors, were declared wards of the juvenile court (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602) upon findings that they committed misdemeanors. As a term of probation and over the objection of minors’ counsel, the court ordered both to pay the $20 court security fee.

The Santa Barbara County Public Defender contests the juvenile court’s imposition of the $20 fee. The public defender meritoriously contends that juvenile court adjudications of wardships are not convictions and, consequently, Penal Code section 1465.8 is inapplicable.

It is a fundamental rule of statutory construction that when a statute’s language is plain, we are to consult the words of the statute, “giving the language its usual, ordinary meaning.”

(Curle

v.

Superior Court

(2001) 24 Cal.4th 1057, 1063 [103 Cal.Rptr.2d 751, 16 P.3d 166].) Courts should not attempt to afford a statute greater breadth than that afforded by its plain language.

(Collins

v.

Superior Court

(2001) 89 Cal.App.4th 1244, 1249 [108 Cal.Rptr.2d 123].) “[W]e take the statute as we find it.”

(People

v.

Collins

(1992) 10 Cal.App.4th 690, 698 [12 Cal.Rptr.2d 768].)

The language in section 1465.8 is clear: a $20 court security fee is to be imposed for “every conviction for a criminal offense.” A conviction “generally means ‘the result of a criminal trial which ends in a judgment or sentence that the accused is guilty as charged.’ (Citation.)”