In re B.B., No. A09A0742.

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Phipps
• Citation: 680 S.E.2d 497,298 Ga. App. 432
• Parties: In the Interest of B.B., a child.
• Decision Date: 17 June 2009
• Docket Number: No. A09A0742.

680 S.E.2d 497 298 Ga. App. 432 In the Interest of B.B., a child. No. A09A0742. Court of Appeals of Georgia. June 17, 2009.

[680 S.E.2d 498]

Preston J. Meche II, Craig T. Pearson, for appellant.

Tom Durden, District Attorney, Johnathan C. Gaskin, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

PHIPPS, Judge.

Following a series of incidents involving 14-year-old B.B. and her father, the juvenile court adjudicated B.B. delinquent for acts that, if committed by an adult, would have constituted simple battery and criminal trespass, and it adjudicated B.B. unruly for being a runaway juvenile and for being habitually disobedient of her father and entered dispositional orders setting out a plan of remediation for B.B. On appeal, B.B. contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the court's adjudications. For reasons set forth below, we find the evidence sufficient to show that B.B. committed the acts of simple assault and criminal trespass upon which the court based its adjudication of delinquency. We also find evidence sufficient to show that B.B. committed the act of habitual disobedience, and that she committed one alleged act of being a runaway upon which the court based its adjudication of unruliness. But we find the evidence insufficient to show that B.B. committed the other alleged act of being a runaway upon which the court based its adjudication of unruliness. Accordingly, we affirm the adjudications of delinquency and unruliness but vacate in part the dispositional order and remand for reconsideration.

We apply the standard set forth in Jackson v. Virginia¹ to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to support the juvenile court's adjudication that a juvenile was delinquent or unruly.² "Thus, we construe the evidence in favor of the juvenile court's findings and determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile committed the acts charged."³

So construed, the evidence showed that on June 5, 2008, B.B.'s father asked her to retrieve the mail. After doing so, B.B. threw the mail at her father; the two got into a

680 S.E.2d 499

verbal dispute; the father put his finger three or four inches away from B.B.'s face; and the girl slapped her father's hand. B.B. then locked herself in her room, and her father beat on the door. B.B. opened the door, and as her father walked toward her, B.B. hit him. The two "tussled, fell on the bed," and were "basically wrestling." B.B. pushed her father, who was disabled; he fell and "rolled over on the floor," B.B. "fell on top of [him]," and "and [his] prosthesis came off." B.B. then left the residence without her father's consent. Following this episode, the state filed a petition seeking that B.B. be adjudicated delinquent for acts constituting simple battery and a petition seeking that B.B. be adjudicated unruly for being a runaway juvenile.

On July 21, 2008, B.B. left her residence with instructions from her father to return in an hour. When she had not returned after approximately three hours, her father called the police. B.B. ultimately returned on her own more than ten hours after she left, and she and her father argued. Based upon these events, the state filed a petition seeking that B.B. be adjudicated unruly on two grounds: that she was habitually disobedient of her father and that she was a runaway juvenile.

On July 31, 2008, B.B. left her residence with instructions from her father to return in 45 minutes, but she did not return within that time. B.B.'s father testified that she was habitually disobedient of his commands because she had not returned as instructed. Also on July 31, B.B. kicked a hole in the kitchen wall. She told her father that she had tried to kill a roach, but the father could not find any roach. Following these events, the state filed a petition seeking that B.B. be adjudicated delinquent for acts constituting criminal trespass for damaging the kitchen wall.

The juvenile court found that B.B. had committed the acts alleged in the various petitions, and it adjudicated B.B. delinquent and unruly.

1. B.B. contends that the evidence did not demonstrate that she had acted in a manner that would have constituted simple battery had she been an adult. In support of this contention, she points to her testimony that she did not push her father and...