## Facts

- Georgia’s Juvenile Court Code imposed a timing requirement for adjudicatory delinquency hearings when a child was held in detention.
- The statute required the court to fix the adjudicatory-hearing date **after** the delinquency petition was filed, and the hearing date could be **no later than 10 days after** the petition’s filing.
- On June 3, 1976, the juvenile court held a detention hearing concerning J.T.G., ordered continued detention, and set the adjudicatory hearing for June 15, 1976.
- At the time the court set June 15 as the adjudicatory date, the State had not yet filed its delinquency petition.
- The State filed the delinquency petition on June 4, 1976.
- Because the petition was filed on June 4, the June 15 adjudicatory hearing date fell more than 10 days after filing.
- At the adjudicatory hearing, J.T.G. moved to dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction based on noncompliance with the statutory timing requirement.
- The State argued that J.T.G. waived the timing defect by not objecting when the court announced the June 15 hearing date at the detention hearing.
- The juvenile court denied the motion to dismiss and adjudicated J.T.G. delinquent; J.T.G. appealed.

## Issues

1. Are the Juvenile Court Code’s time limits for setting an adjudicatory hearing for a detained child jurisdictional such that noncompliance requires dismissal?
2. If the time limits can be waived, did J.T.G. waive them by failing to object when the court set an adjudicatory hearing date before the delinquency petition was filed?

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed.
- The court held that the Juvenile Court Code’s time limits for setting adjudicatory hearings in detention cases are jurisdictional and the adjudicatory hearing must be set within the period prescribed by statute.
- Although the statutory timing requirement can be waived in some circumstances, no waiver occurred here because the adjudicatory hearing date was set before any petition existed.
- Because Code § 24A-1701(a) required the adjudicatory hearing to be fixed only after the petition was filed, the court treated the pre-petition setting as legally ineffective; it could not start or satisfy the statutory timetable and could not support waiver.
- The court directed the juvenile court to grant the motion to dismiss the delinquency petition.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory time limits in the Georgia Juvenile Court Code governing adjudicatory hearings for detained children are jurisdictional; failure to comply deprives the juvenile court of authority to proceed.
- In detention cases, Code § 24A-1701(a) requires the adjudicatory hearing date to be fixed after the filing of the delinquency petition, and within the statute’s time window measured from that filing.
- A party may waive some procedural timing protections in juvenile proceedings, but waiver requires a legally effective setting within the statutory framework.
- A hearing date set before the delinquency petition is filed is a null act for purposes of the statutory schedule and cannot operate as a waiver of the filing-based timing requirement.
- When the adjudicatory hearing is held outside the statutory period without a valid waiver, the proper remedy is dismissal of the petition.

## Conclusion

*J.T.G. v. State* holds that the Juvenile Court Code’s timing rules for adjudicatory hearings in detention cases are jurisdictional and must be measured from the filing of the delinquency petition; because the court set the adjudicatory hearing before the petition was filed and the hearing occurred more than 10 days after filing, the statutory requirement was not satisfied and J.T.G. did not waive it by failing to object at the detention hearing, so the Court of Appeals reversed and directed dismissal of the petition.


J.T.G. v. State, 141 Ga. App. 184, 233 S.E.2d 40 (1977)