DAVID, J.
At a dispositional hearing, the juvenile court imposed on the delinquent child a determinate commitment of two years at the Department of Correction to be followed by an indeterminate commitment. We hold that the determinate and indeterminate commitment statutes in question are unambiguously mutually exclusive, and thus the trial court could impose only one of the commitments on the delinquent child. We reverse the trial court‘s dispositional order and remand to the trial court to decide, in its discretion, which type of commitment is appropriate.
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In November 2009, the juvenile court held a dispositional hearing. Using two different dispositional statutes, the juvenile court imposed on D.C. a determinate commitment of two years at the Department of Correction (“DOC”) to be followed by an indeterminate commitment “until the age of 21 unless sooner released by” the DOC.
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Indiana Code section 31-37-19-6 (2008) [footnote omitted] (“section 6”) provides for, among other things, an indeterminate commitment of a delinquent child. One option for the trial court under section 6 is to award wardship of the child to the DOC. In that case, the DOC determines both the placement of the juvenile and the duration of the placement. See Matter of Tina T., 579 N.E.2d 48, 61 (Ind. 1991). Indiana Code section 31-37-19-53 (“section 5”) lists a “menu of dispositional options” that may be ordered in addition to an order under section 6. R.J.G. v. State, 902 N.E.2d 804, 806 (Ind. 2009). For example, this Court has noted that a juvenile court could order both a commitment to the DOC under section 6 and subsequent probation under section 5. Id. Finally, Indiana Code section 31-37-19-104 (“section 10”) provides for a determinate commitment of a juvenile for up to two years to the DOC if the juvenile fits certain criteria. Specifically, the section applies to delinquent children who have committed one of the listed felonies in the provision; were at least fourteen years old when committing the felony; and have had two unrelated prior delinquent offenses that included acts that would be felonies if committed by an adult. Ind. Code § 31-37-19-10(a). Section 10 explicitly states that the DOC cannot reduce the period that the juvenile court orders under the section. Id. § 31-37-19-10(c).
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. . . [W]e agree with the Court of Appeals and D.C. that by its plain terms, the “except as provided in section 10” language in section 6 sets forth an exception to the juvenile court‘s authority to order an indeterminate commitment. That is, if the court exercises its authority under section 10 to order a determinate commitment, it may not order an indeterminate commitment under section 6. Or, in other words, the juvenile court can use section 6 to order an indeterminate commitment unless it proceeds under section 10 to order a determinate commitment.
We do agree . . .with the State’s second argument. Section 10(b) provides that the juvenile court “may” issue a determinate commitment of not more than two years. The commitment options in section 6 are likewise permissive. We do not see anything in either provision that mandates a juvenile court to impose a section 10 determinate commitment if the juvenile fits the section 10 criteria. This is consistent with language from this Court‘s opinion in J.D. v. State, 853 N.E.2d 945, 949 (Ind. 2006): “The juvenile court judge had the authority to decide whether to employ’determinate sentencing‘ in the first place; it was one of the juvenile court’s ‘dispositional alternatives’ to proceed under Indiana Code section 31-37-19-10 but the court was not required to utilize this provision.” Thus, the Court of Appeals should have remanded the case to the juvenile court for a dispositional order committing D.C. under either section 6 or section 10 instead of instructing the juvenile court to impose only a section 10 determinate commitment.
The State fervently argues that holding sections 6 and 10 mutually exclusive contravenes the purpose of the statutes. In fact, D.C. does not dispute this. We agree with the State that juvenile courts would retain more flexibility in fashioning dispositions for serious, recidivist juvenile offenders who fall under section 10 if a section 10 determinate commitment was an additional, instead of alternative, option to a section 6 indeterminate commitment. But the language of section 6 is clear and unambiguous, and we accordingly hold that sections 6 and 10 as written are mutually exclusive. We leave it to the legislature to change the statutes, if it deems necessary.
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Sullivan, and Rucker, JJ., concur.