Brown, J.
In April 2010, Gingerich was twelve years and two months old, stood about 5’2”, weighed about eighty pounds, and was a sixth grader at Wawassee Middle School. On April 20, 2010, Gingerich and Colt Lundy shot and killed Philip Danner, Lundy’s stepfather, and they were subsequently apprehended in Peru, Illinois, while traveling to Arizona.
On April 22, 2010, the court held a detention/probable cause hearing in which Gingerich was represented by Thomas W. Earhart. Detention of Gingerich was authorized, the State requested to file a delinquency petition, the court authorized the filing of the petition, and the State filed a motion to waive juvenile jurisdiction pursuant to Ind. Code § 31-30-3-4. That same day, the court set the matter for hearing on April 29, 2010. On April 27, 2010, Gingerich filed a motion to continue the waiver hearing, stating that “such hearing date does not allow Counsel . . . sufficient time to prepare for such hearing” and noted specifically that “counsel needs time to (a) identify and interview potential witness[es] on behalf of [Gingerich]; (b) obtain and review exhibits for presentation; [and] (c) conduct its own investigations as it has not received from the State any witness or client statements, autopsy reports, coroner reports, ballistic reports or forensic reports.” Appellant’s Appendix at 10. Gingerich’s counsel also stated in the motion that he “believes that it is in the best interest of his client that a psychological and/or psychiatric evaluation be done,” that this could not be accomplished prior to the hearing, and concluded that “without additional time, the matters to be determined at the waiver hearing cannot be completely and fairly heard and determined.” Id.
On April 29, 2010, the court denied Gingerich’s motion to continue and held a waiver hearing. At the outset, Gingerich renewed his motion to continue the hearing, noting that “we are at a critical stage in these proceedings,” that “[t]he decisions made by the Court today are going to be life altering,” and that “we do not feel that we have had adequate time to prepare for this waiver hearing . . . .”
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Thus, the Indiana Supreme Court in Vance held that juvenile waiver hearings are not “perfunctory proceedings” and that due process requires that child defendants at waiver proceedings be afforded sufficient time to prepare a defense addressing both evidence of criminality as well as whether waiver would not be in the best interests of the child and the safety and welfare of the community. Under these circumstances, in which Gingerich’s counsel had four business days to prepare, and he repeatedly moved for a continuance both on April 27, 2010 and at the outset of the hearing itself, we conclude that Gingerich’s counsel did not have sufficient time to prepare and that he was prejudiced. In so holding, we note that Gingerich on appeal identified specific instances in which his lack of time to prepare prejudiced him at the waiver hearing. First, Gingerich identifies the failure to investigate whether Gingerich was competent, due to developmental immaturity, to stand trial or enter a guilty plea. Gingerich in his brief points to Dr. Ross’s report which was completed on October 26, 2010 (about a week before Gingerich pled guilty) and which noted concerns about Gingerich’s competence, noting that Gingerich believed it was the judge’s responsibility to find him guilty, he displayed an inability to articulate fully what his counsels’ role was in the case, he did not understand why he should not speak with the prosecutor without his attorney, he displayed an inability to convey an understanding of the concept of plea bargaining, he did not understand many of the legal strategies his counsel proposed, and he was unable to understand many of the words being used by his counsel. Second, Gingerich notes that his trial counsel was not adequately prepared to refute the testimony of Officer Babcock, specifically, Officer Babcock’s testimony that he was unaware of a facility which would accept Gingerich. As noted by Amicus MCPDA, it is common practice to attempt to find a placement in a juvenile facility prior to the waiver hearing, but that the time afforded Gingerich’s counsel precluded such an investigation. Accordingly, we find that the juvenile court abused its discretion when it denied Gingerich’s request for a continuance. [Footnote omitted.] . . . .
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse Gingerich’s conviction for conspiracy to commit murder as a class A felony, and we remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
BAKER, J., and KIRSCH, J., concur.