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 (1993), we interpreted section
9-27-317 and held that the statutory requirement of parental consent to a juvenile’s waiver
of the right to counsel applies only to proceedings in juvenile court. Because the juvenile
in that case was charged as an adult in circuit court, we affirmed the circuit court’s denial of
the motion to suppress the defendant’s confession, stating that “when the prosecutor chooses
to prosecute a juvenile in circuit court as an adult, the juvenile becomes subject to the
procedures and penalties prescribed for adults.”

Id.

 at 172–73, 852 S.W.2d at 264.
We reaffirmed this holding in Ring v. State,

 (1995),
wherein the juvenile argued that he had not yet been charged as an adult at the time he
gave his confession and that section 9-27-317 therefore applied to him and prevented the
admissibility of his confession at a hearing on his motion to transfer his case to juvenile
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court. Relying on Boyd, we held that because the appellant in Ring “was ultimately charged
in circuit court and, upon this court’s affirmance of the denial of his motion to transfer, will
ultimately be tried there, the failure of the law enforcement officers to obtain the consent
of appellant’s parents to his waiver of right to counsel, as required by section 9-27-317, does
not bar admission of appellant’s confession.”

Id. at 132

894 S.W.2d at 946

.
Subsequent to our decisions in Boyd and Ring, we have continued to hold that the
provisions in section 9-27-317 apply only to juvenile-court proceedings. See, e.g., Jackson
v. State,

359 Ark. 87

194 S.W.3d 757

 (2004) (affirming denial of motion to suppress based
on failure to comply with section 9-27-317(i) where juvenile was charged as an adult); Ray
v. State,

344 Ark. 136

40 S.W.3d 243

 (2001) (holding that provisions in section 9-27-317
regarding juvenile’s right to have a parent present during questioning are limited to juvenile
proceedings); Misskelley v. State,

323 Ark. 449

915 S.W.2d 702

 (1996), as supplemented on
denial of reh’g (stating that requirement of parental consent to juvenile’s waiver of rights
applies only to juvenile court proceedings); Sims v. State,

320 Ark. 528

900 S.W.2d 508

(1995) (affirming circuit court’s denial of motion to suppress even though parents did not
consent to waiver of right to counsel where juvenile was ultimately charged and tried in
circuit court), overruled on other grounds by MacKintrush v. State,

334 Ark. 390

978 S.W.2d 293

 (1998).
While Griffin contends that Boyd and its progeny should be overruled, we have
expressly declined to do so in previous cases. Jackson,

supra;

 Misskelley,

supra.

 We noted in
Misskelley that “it would be the height of unfairness” for this court to overrule Boyd after
nearly three years of consistently following its line of reasoning. Misskelley,

323 Ark. at

469–
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70,

915 S.W.2d at 713

. This statement is even more valid now, after more than twenty-
three years.
We share the circuit court’s concern with protecting a juvenile in Griffin’s situation.
As Griffin argues, our interpretation of the statute at issue provides incentive for a prosecutor
to charge a juvenile in circuit court rather than in the juvenile division when a statement
has been taken in violation of the statute. Thus, even though this statute was intended to
provide greater protection for juveniles, our interpretation in Boyd and subsequent cases has
had the opposite effect. Nonetheless, while we agree that the result may seem egregious,
we are bound by the principles of stare decisis to follow the interpretation of section 9-27-
317 that we set out in the Boyd line of cases. We note that the legislature has had ample
opportunity during this time to extend the rights contained in section 9-27-317 to adult
proceedings, but it has chosen not to do so.          Ray, supra.    It is well settled that an
interpretation of a statute by this court subsequently becomes a part of the statute itself.
Corn v. Farmers Ins. Co.,

2013 Ark. 444

430 S.W.3d 655

. The legislature is presumed to
be familiar with this court’s interpretation of a statute, and if it disagrees with that
interpretation, it can amend the statute.

Id.

 Without such an amendment, however, our
interpretation remains the law.

Id.

 Accordingly, we must regrettably decline Griffin’s
invitation to overrule our prior cases.
Griffin further argues that his situation can be distinguished from our earlier cases
because he was in DHS custody. He asserts that Boyd and subsequent cases following that
line of reasoning contemplated only juveniles in the custody of their parents and that
juveniles in DHS custody should be afforded a greater degree of legal protection. This
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argument is not persuasive, however, as we have been consistent in our interpretation of
the various provisions in section 9-27-317 and in holding that the juvenile code applies only
to juvenile-court proceedings.2 Ray,

supra;

 Boyd,

supra.

 Griffin provides no convincing
argument as to why subsection (g) of the statute should be interpreted differently.
In granting Griffin’s motion to suppress, the circuit court noted that Griffin had not
yet been charged as an adult when he made his July 9, 2013 statement to police. However,
this was also the situation in both Boyd and Ring, and we held that it was the court in which
the juvenile was ultimately charged and tried that determined whether the protections in
section 9-27-317 applied. Ring,

320 Ark. at 131

894 S.W.2d at 946

; Boyd,

313 Ark. at

172–73,

853 S.W.2d at

264–65. Accordingly, the circuit court erred in granting Griffin’s
motion to suppress his statement to police, and we reverse and remand.
Reversed and remanded.
BAKER and WOMACK, JJ., concur.
HART, J., dissents.
SHAWN A. WOMACK, Justice, concurring. The ability of the state to charge a
dangerous juvenile as an adult is an important tool of prosecutors trying to protect society.

Ark. Code Ann. §9-27-318

 (Repl. 2015). The responsibility to protect minors and their
families from overzealous state actors during investigations and interrogations is both an
2
Although the dissent asserts that section 9-27-317(g) should be interpreted
differently because it does not contain the language in subsection (a) limiting its application
only to proceedings in juvenile court, we have previously interpreted other subsections in
the statute that do not contain such language in a similar manner, and we have held that the
juvenile code, as a whole, applies only to juvenile proceedings. See, e.g., Jackson,

supra

(discussing section 9-27-317(i)); Ray,

supra.

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important function of the judiciary and the public policy of this state as expressed by the
General Assembly.

Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-317

 (Repl. 2015). This case brings us to the
intersection of these two competing principles.
While the legislature has addressed both the need to protect minors and the need to
treat some minors as adults for the purpose of bringing criminal charges, they have not
clearly addressed when each principle prevails in the event of a conflict. In the absence of
clear guidance from the General Assembly, it is our role to determine when each statute
applies.
To resolve this, I would propose a simple balancing test between the decision to
charge as an adult and the effectiveness of the waiver of counsel based on the timing of the
two events. Under this test, a waiver of the right to counsel made after the decision to
charge as an adult has been made and communicated to the minor defendant would be
effective while a waiver made prior to the decision to charge as an adult or a juvenile has
been made and communicated would be ineffective with the minor retaining the protection
of the juvenile code.
This balancing test is consistent with the tenets of Boyd v. State,

301 Ark. 171

 (1993), where it was held that the statutory protections of section 9-27-317
apply to proceedings in the juvenile court and are lost when a minor has been charged as
an adult in circuit court. However, in reaching this result, I would overrule the holding in
Ring v. State,

 (1995) where this court, erroneously in my
opinion, allowed a decision to charge a juvenile as an adult after what would have otherwise
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been an ineffective waiver, to retroactively make the waiver effective and remove the
protection that the statute gave to the then uncharged juvenile.
The timing of the event is important. Prior to being charged as an adult in circuit
court, the minor is still afforded the protection of a juvenile and that which is invalid cannot
be made valid retroactively by a subsequent decision of the State, which is likely often made
based on the invalid act in the first place. As it stands now, under the Ring ruling,
prosecutors are almost forced into the decision to charge as an adult in order to take
advantage of the otherwise defective waiver. See Boyd v. State,

313 Ark. 171

, 174,

, 265 (1993) (Newbern, J., dissenting); Ring v. State,

 (1995) (Newbern, J., dissenting). This creates the potential for overcharging in cases
where the decision of the State may very well have been to charge as a juvenile in the
absence of the defect.
Under this proposed test, the ability of the prosecutor to charge as an adult under
section 9-27-318 is unchanged. However, in those cases where a minor is charged as an
adult and where there is a waiver of counsel, statements made under the waiver would be
admissible only if the prosecutor either (a) makes and communicates to the defendant the
decision to charge as an adult prior to the waiver; or (b) obtains the waiver in compliance
with section 9-27-317 if it is obtained prior to the making and communicating of the
charging decision.
The facts in the current case are unusual in their sequence. In Griffin, the Appellee
was charged as an adult for the Fayetteville crime and while in jail, as an adult, he was
interrogated, and he waived his right to counsel. Based on admissions made during that
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interrogation, he was subsequently charged as an adult for a separate crime committed in
Springdale. I agree with the majority in the outcome based on the loss of juvenile code
protection upon the initial decision to charge as an adult in the Fayetteville case. However,
I write this concurrence to highlight the fact that, but for the initial charging of the
Fayetteville crime, the waiver-based interrogation that resulted in the confession of the
Springdale crime would have stood under the Ring decision but should have been invalid
under the test proposed herein.
BAKER, J., joins.
JOSEPHINE LINKER HART, Justice, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. Arkansas
Code Annotated section 9-27-317(g) (Repl. 2015) provides, “No waiver of the right to
counsel shall be accepted when a juvenile is in the custody of the Department of Human
Services, including the Division of Youth Services of the Department of Human Services.”
Subsection (g) is an absolute prohibition: no waiver of the right to counsel shall be accepted
when a juvenile is in the custody of the Department of Human Services. James Griffin, Jr.,
was in the custody of the Department of Human Services. Thus, his waiver of counsel was
ineffective, and the circuit court properly suppressed the statement he gave to the police.
The majority not only concludes that the case before us is one of first impression but
also concludes that its decision to reverse is compelled by stare decisis, presumably because
of cases interpreting another statutory provision, section 9-27-317(a)(3). The majority relies
on Boyd v. State,

313 Ark. 171

 (1993), the first case to consider section 9-
27-317 and which specifically interpreted section 9-27-317(a). Subsection (a)(3) provides,
“Waiver of the right to counsel at a delinquency or family in need of services hearing shall
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be accepted only upon a finding by the court from clear and convincing evidence, after
questioning the juvenile, that . . . [t]he parent, guardian, custodian, or counsel for the
juvenile has agreed with the juvenile’s decision to waive the right to counsel.”

Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-317

(a)(3).
In contrast to section 9-27-317(g), section 9-27-317(a)(3) is not stated as an absolute
prohibition barring a juvenile’s waiver of the right to counsel. Moreover, as the Boyd court
observed, section 9-27-317(a)(3) specifically references only proceedings in juvenile courts.
The Boyd court concluded, “[T]he section of the juvenile code requiring parental consent
to a waiver is limited to proceedings in the juvenile division of chancery court.”

Id. at 173

853 S.W.2d at 265

. Section 9-27-317(g) does not limit its applicability only to juvenile-
court proceedings.
In Ring v. State,