With certain exceptions not applicable here, the juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction over delinquency actions concerning “any child”; and a child is defined as any individual who is “under the age of 17 years.” OCGA § § 15-11-28 a 1 A; 15-11-2 2 A. The question in this case is exactly when does a person attain the age of 17 years for the purposes of this definition. The record shows that A. P. S. was arrested for possessing marijuana on February 6, 2009, the day before his seventeenth birthday. Although the State originally filed a delinquency petition in juvenile court, it moved to transfer the action to state court on the ground that, based on controlling precedent, the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction because A. P. S. turned seventeen “at the first moment of the day prior to the anniversary of his birth.” The juvenile court granted the State’s motion, but issued a certificate of immediate review. A. P. S. then filed a timely application for interlocutory appeal, which we granted.
Jurisdiction rests in the juvenile court “if the accused is under the age of seventeen at the time the offense is committed.” In the Interest of J. T. D. , 242 Ga. App. 243, 244 529 SE2d 377 2000 punctuation omitted. The Juvenile Code, however, provides no guidance on calculating an individual’s age, and it does not specify when an individual actually turns seventeen. In finding that it lacked jurisdiction over A. P. S., the juvenile court relied on this Court’s decision in Edmonds v. State , 154 Ga. App. 650 269 SE2d 512 1980. In Edmonds the defendant argued that jurisdiction over his burglary indictment lay in the juvenile court because the offense occurred between 12:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. on the date of his seventeenth birthday, and his birth certificate showed that he was born at 1:10 a.m. According to the defendant, he did not turn seventeen until 1:10 a.m. on his seventeenth birthday, ten minutes after the crime took place. Rejecting this argument, this Court noted that the juvenile code was silent as to how age is computed; it then cited the common law “coming of age” rule, which specifies that “one became of full age on the day preceding the twenty-first anniversary of his birth, on the first moment of that day.” Id. at 651 punctuation omitted.1 Based on this rule, the Court determined that, for the purpose of juvenile court jurisdiction, the Edmonds defendant turned seventeen on the day before his seventeenth birthday. Id. See also Thomas v. Couch , 171 Ga. 602 1 156 SE 206 1930 “One becomes of full age on the day preceding the twenty-first anniversary of his birth, on the first moment of that day.”
