## Facts

- On September 29, 1985, around 8:15 p.m., Frank Iafrate, Jr. was approached by a police officer who attempted to issue a loitering citation while Iafrate was near a parked car on a public roadway.
- An altercation occurred between Iafrate and the officer, and Iafrate was arrested.
- Iafrate’s eighteenth birthday was the next day, September 30, 1985.
- The Commonwealth prosecuted Iafrate as an adult in the Court of Common Pleas of Lehigh County.
- Before trial, Iafrate moved to quash and transfer the matter to juvenile court under the Juvenile Act, asserting he was “under eighteen years of age” at the time of the offense.
- The trial court denied transfer and proceeded to trial; a jury convicted Iafrate of one count of simple assault and acquitted him of a second simple assault count and summary offenses.
- Iafrate appealed, challenging (among other matters) the denial of juvenile-court treatment.

## Issues

1. Whether, under the Pennsylvania Juvenile Act, a defendant whose eighteenth birthday is the day after the offense is “under eighteen years of age” and therefore entitled to immediate application of the Juvenile Act and transfer to juvenile court.
2. Whether the trial court erred in admitting a custodial statement about hiring an attorney made before Miranda warnings.
3. Whether the trial court erred in limiting defense testimony concerning alleged illegality of the arrest.
4. Whether the trial court erred in excluding photographs of the scene.

## Decision

- The Superior Court affirmed the judgment of sentence.
- The court held that, under Pennsylvania common law, a person attains a given age on the day before the birthday anniversary.
- Applying that rule, Iafrate was legally eighteen on September 29, 1985, and therefore was not a “child” under the Juvenile Act.
- Because Iafrate was not a “child,” the trial court properly denied the motion to quash and transfer to juvenile court.
- The court rejected Iafrate’s remaining evidentiary and trial-error claims and left the conviction intact.

## Legal Principles

- Under Pennsylvania common law, a person reaches a specified age on the day preceding the birthday anniversary.
- For Juvenile Act purposes, “child” means an individual “under eighteen years of age,” and the transfer provision applies only if the defendant qualifies as a child in the criminal proceeding.
- Absent clear legislative direction displacing the common-law age rule, statutory age phrases are construed against that common-law background.
- A defendant who is legally eighteen at the time of the offense is not entitled to Juvenile Act transfer in a non-murder criminal proceeding.

## Conclusion

The Superior Court concluded that Pennsylvania’s common-law “day-before” age rule made Iafrate legally eighteen when the offense occurred the night before his eighteenth birthday; as a result, he was not “under eighteen” within the Juvenile Act and was properly tried as an adult, with the judgment of sentence affirmed.


Commonwealth v. Iafrate, 561 A.2d 1244 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1989)