Smith v. Mitchell P.

I respectfully dissent.

In reaching the conclusion that a minor may be adjudged to have committed a crime solely upon the uncorroborated testimony of a witness, who had been given immunity for his own admitted criminal acts, the majority err twice. They violate the Legislature’s mandate that in the juvenile court system, “accomplice testimony should be surrounded with the usual safeguards . . . -”1 They also contradict the constitutional prohibition that judicial “intervention [into the life of a minor] cannot take the form of subjecting the child to the stigma of a finding that he *954violated a…