In re J.A.D.
| Decision Date | 19 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | COA21-228 |
| Citation | 872 S.E.2d 374 |
| Parties | In the MATTER OF: J.A.D., a minor juvenile. |
| Court | North Carolina Court of Appeals |
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Assistant Attorney General Melissa K. Walker, for the State.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate Defender Jillian C. Katz, for the Respondent-Juvenile.
¶ 1 Respondent-juvenile J.A.D. ("Jeremy")1 appeals from the trial court's orders adjudicating him delinquent for extortion of a classmate and entering a disposition of probation. Jeremy challenges his adjudication and disposition at each step of the proceedings, arguing (1) the State's failure to name the victim in his juvenile petition was a fatal defect; (2) the evidence presented at the adjudication hearing did not show that his alleged threat was a "true threat" warranting punishment; (3) the evidence concerning his threat fatally varied from the language alleged in his juvenile petition; (4) the trial court failed to make sufficient written findings of fact in his adjudication order; and (5) the trial court failed to make sufficient written findings of fact in his disposition order. After review, we discern no error in Jeremy's adjudication, but remand each order for additional findings of fact.
¶ 2 This is a case of an alleged extortion of favors from a middle school student by her classmate through the threat of revealing partially unclothed images to other students. The evidence at the adjudication hearing tended to show as follows:
¶ 3 Sometime in early 2020, Jeremy and three of his classmates were working on an assignment together and using their cell phones in their eighth-grade classroom. Cecilia2 , one of the three classmates, showed messages on her cell phone to the group. Either by permission or by grabbing the phone from Cecilia, Jeremy came into possession of Cecilia's cell phone. Jeremy then ran out of the classroom and into the bathroom for a short period of time. His teacher made him come back to the classroom, where he returned Cecilia's phone and was then sent to the principal's office.
¶ 4 On 26 February 2020, Cecilia reported to school administration that "a picture of [her] in underwear and a bra" was "being used by three eighth graders" to "obtain items from the cafeteria." Two of Jeremy's friends repeatedly used the picture to make Cecilia buy them cookies for approximately three to four months. Cecilia also reported that Jeremy "asked [her] to do his math homework." When she refused, Jeremy said he and his friends "would expose the picture of [her] to [her] face." Jeremy told her, "We always have that picture, you don't want that going around."
¶ 5 The School Resource Officer ("SRO") investigated Cecilia's report. Jeremy admitted to the SRO that he had taken Cecilia's phone, and the SRO confirmed that Cecilia had a picture of herself in underwear and a bra saved on her phone at that time. The SRO observed Jeremy and his friends using Snapchat on school computers and believed they had used the software to share the picture of Cecilia. Following his investigation, the SRO filed a juvenile petition against Jeremy for extortion on 12 May 2020.
¶ 6 The trial court continued the juvenile petition on 2 June 2020, and continued it once again on 31 July 2020. On 28 August 2020, the trial court denied a third motion to continue and dismissed the juvenile petition.
¶ 7 On 2 September 2020, a new, identical juvenile petition was filed once again alleging that Jeremy committed extortion. On 11 December 2020, the trial court held an adjudicatory and dispositional hearing on the juvenile petition. The trial court adjudicated Jeremy delinquent on one count on extortion, entered a Level I disposition, and sentenced him to twelve months of probation. Jeremy timely appealed from the adjudication and disposition.
¶ 8 Jeremy asserts the trial court erred through five arguments challenging subject matter jurisdiction, the sufficiency of the evidence presented at the adjudication hearing, and the sufficiency of the written findings of fact in each of the trial court's orders.
¶ 9 Jeremy argues that the "trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction where the petition was fatally defective because it failed to name the victim" of his alleged crime of extortion. We review the jurisdictional validity of a charging instrument de novo. See State v. Sturdivant , 304 N.C. 293, 308, 283 S.E.2d 719, 729 (1981).
¶ 10 "[A] petition in a juvenile action serves essentially the same function as an indictment in a felony prosecution and is subject to the same requirement that it aver every element of a criminal offense, with sufficient specificity that the accused is clearly apprised of the conduct for which he is being charged." In re T.T.E. , 372 N.C. 413, 419, 831 S.E.2d 293, 297 (2019) (citation omitted). "When a petition is fatally deficient, it is inoperative and fails to evoke the jurisdiction of the court." In re J.F.M. & T.J.B. , 168 N.C. App. 143, 150, 607 S.E.2d 304, 309 (2005) (citation omitted). "[I]t is not the function of [a charging instrument] to bind the hands of the State with technical rules of pleading; rather, its purposes are to identify clearly the crime being charged, thereby putting the accused on reasonable notice to defend against it and prepare for trial, and to protect the accused from being jeopardized by the State more than once for the same crime." Sturdivant , 304 N.C. at 311, 283 S.E.2d at 731 (citation omitted).
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-118.4. " ‘Extortion may be defined as wrongfully obtaining anything of value from another by threat, duress, or coercion.’ " State v. Privette , 218 N.C. App. 459, 474, 721 S.E.2d 299, 310 (2012) ().
¶ 12 The juvenile petition alleging extortion in this case stated:
The petition did not name Cecilia as the victim to whom Jeremy made his threat.
¶ 13 Jeremy argues the petition was fatally defective because it did not name Cecilia, and instead referred only to "another" and "the victim." Jeremy does not cite authority which states that a charging instrument for extortion must name the victim.
Rather, Jeremy derives his argument from the rule for charging armed robbery set out in this Court's opinion in State v. Oldroyd , 271 N.C. App. 544, 843 S.E.2d 478 (2020), rev'd , 2022-NCSC-27, 869 S.E.2d 193. This Court's opinion in Oldroyd has been reversed and is no longer binding.
¶ 14 In Oldroyd , the defendant was convicted of attempted armed robbery under an indictment which alleged the defendant attempted to commit armed robbery against "the person and presence of employees of the Huddle House ... whereby the li[ves] of the Huddle House employees w[ere] threatened and endangered." Id. at 548–49, 843 S.E.2d at 481. This Court vacated the defendant's conviction, holding that the general naming of the victims as "Huddle House employees" was insufficient to give the trial court jurisdiction because the defendant's "indictment for attempted armed robbery must have named a victim to be valid." Id. at 551–52, 843 S.E.2d at 483.
¶ 15 The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed this Court's decision in Oldroyd , holding the indictment was "a plain and concise factual statement which conveyed the exactitude necessary to place [the defendant] on notice of the event or transaction against which he was expected to defend, to protect [him] from being placed in jeopardy twice for the same crime, and to guide the trial court in entering the correct judgment." State v. Oldroyd , 380 N.C. 613, 2022-NCSC-27, ¶ 13, 869 S.E.2d 193 ; N.C. Gen. Stat. § 924(a)(5) (2019). The Supreme Court held that the defendant's indictment plainly and concisely "asserted facts supporting every element of the criminal offense ..., without allegations of an evidentiary nature, but with the sufficient precision which is statutorily required to inform [the] defendant of his alleged conduct...." Id. ¶ 9. In reaching its conclusion, the Supreme Court placed emphasis on modern, less strict criminal pleading requirements set forth in the Criminal Procedure Act of 1975, which affected a "relaxation of the erstwhile common law criminal pleadings" and "signaled a shift ‘away from the technical rules of pleading.’ " Id. ¶ 10 (citation omitted).
¶ 16 It is important that the indictment in Oldroyd did name the victims with some specificity, i.e., the "employees of the Huddle House." In this case, Jeremy's petition named the victim by referring to Cecilia only as "the victim" and "another."
¶ 17 Having acknowledged that the rule set forth by Jeremy has been overruled, and keeping modern pleading requirements in mind, we are left with...
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