State v. Neukam
| Decision Date | 20 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals Case No. 20A-CR-2006 |
| Citation | 174 N.E.3d 1098 |
| Parties | STATE of Indiana, Appellant-Plaintiff, v. Anthony J. NEUKAM, Appellee-Defendant. |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Attorneys for Appellant: Theodore E. Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana, Angela N. Sanchez, Assistant Chief Counsel of Appeals, Indianapolis, Indiana
Attorney for Appellee: Mark K. Phillips, Boonville, Indiana
[1] In this interlocutory appeal, the State appeals the trial court's order denying the State's motion to amend the charging information against twenty-three-year-old Anthony Neukam ("Neukam") to include eight additional child molesting charges that were alleged to have occurred when Neukam was under the age of eighteen. These eight additional charges had been originally filed in the juvenile court but were dismissed pursuant to our Indiana Supreme Court's holding in D.P. v. State , 151 N.E.3d 1210 (Ind. 2020). The State argues that the trial court erred by denying its motion to amend, asserting that the trial court had jurisdiction over Neukam and the additional child molesting charges where Neukam was over the age of eighteen at the time of the proposed amendment. Concluding that the relevant juvenile statutes set forth by our legislature do not provide the trial court with the necessary jurisdiction under the specific facts of this case, we affirm the trial court's order.
[2] We affirm.
Whether the trial court erred by denying the State's motion to amend the charging information.
[3] In November 2017, the State charged twenty-year-old Neukam with four counts of Level 3 felony child molesting, three counts of Level 3 felony rape, and two counts of Level 5 felony sexual misconduct with a minor ("Neukam's adult criminal case"). The charging information alleged that Neukam had committed these acts against the same victim, who was Neukam's female cousin, between January 2015 and December 2015. During that time period, Neukam would have been eighteen years old, and the victim would have been thirteen or fourteen years old. These charges were filed in the Dubois Circuit Court ("adult criminal court").
[4] In February 2019, when Neukam was twenty-two years old, the State filed a juvenile delinquency petition with the juvenile court. In the petition, the State alleged that Neukam had committed, when he was under the age of eighteen, eight separate acts that would constitute Class B felony child molesting if committed by an adult ("Neukam's juvenile delinquency case"). Specifically, the State alleged that Neukam had committed the eight acts of child molesting between September 2011 and January 2015, when Neukam would have been between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years old. The alleged victim listed in the delinquency petition was the same person listed in the charging information in Neukam's adult criminal case. The State also filed a petition to have the juvenile court waive jurisdiction to the adult criminal court.
[5] On September 8, 2020, the Indiana Supreme Court issued an opinion in D.P. v. State , 151 N.E.3d 1210 (Ind. 2020), which involved the issue of "a juvenile court's ability to waive an individual who is twenty-one or older into adult criminal court." D.P. , 151 N.E.3d at 1212. The D.P. case was a consolidated appeal from two cases in which the State had filed juvenile delinquent petitions against D.P. and N.B. for committing, when they were under the age of eighteen, acts of felony child molesting if committed by an adult. The State also requested to have the juvenile court waive jurisdiction of D.P. and N.B. to adult criminal court. At the time these juvenile petitions and waiver requests were filed, neither D.P. nor N.B. was a "child" as defined by the juvenile law statutes. See IND. CODE § 31-9-2-13(d).1 Specifically, D.P. was twenty-three years old, and N.B. was twenty-one years old.
[6] D.P. and N.B. each filed a motion to dismiss their respective juvenile cases for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In D.P.’s case, the juvenile court denied D.P.’s motion to dismiss, and this Court affirmed the juvenile court's order. See D.P. v. State , 136 N.E.3d 620 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), trans. granted. In N.B.’s case, the juvenile court granted N.B.’s motion, and this Court reversed the juvenile court's judgment. See State v. N.B. , 139 N.E.3d 284 (Ind. Ct. App. 2020), trans. granted.
[7] After this Court issued opinions in each case, the Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer in both cases. In a consolidated opinion, our supreme court affirmed the juvenile court's dismissal order in N.B.’s case, and it reversed the juvenile court's order denying D.P.’s motion to dismiss, remanding the case to the juvenile court with instructions to grant D.P.’s motion to dismiss. See D.P. , 151 N.E.3d at 1217. Our supreme court explained that " ‘[t]he age of the offender is determinative of subject matter jurisdiction in the juvenile court[.]’ " Id. at 1211 (quoting Twyman v. State , 459 N.E.2d 705, 708 (Ind. 1984) ). The D.P. Court clarified that under the "plain language" of the "unambiguous" juvenile jurisdiction statute, INDIANA CODE § 31-30-1-1(1), "a juvenile court has subject matter jurisdiction in delinquency proceedings when the alleged offender is a ‘child,’ a term that [ INDIANA CODE §] 31-9-2-13(d) specifically defines as excluding anyone aged twenty-one or older." D.P. , 151 N.E.3d at 1216. The parties agreed that the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate D.P. or N.B. to be a delinquent child due to their ages. The D.P. Court explained that, like the juvenile jurisdictional statute, the juvenile waiver statutes, INDIANA CODE §§ 31-30-3-5 and 31-30-3-6, applied only when the alleged offender was a "child." See id. at 1216. Because neither D.P. nor N.B. fit the definition of a "child" at the time their respective delinquency petitions were filed, the Indiana Supreme Court held that the juvenile court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to waive D.P. and N.B., as individuals aged twenty-one or older, into adult criminal court. See id. at 1213-16.
[8] The D.P. Court noted the parties had "spen[t] considerable time debating whether the State could directly file charges against D.P. and N.B. in adult criminal court if a juvenile court does[ ] n[o]t have subject matter jurisdiction to conduct a waiver hearing." Id. at 1217 n.2. Our supreme court, however, left this "tangential" issue for another day because the State had "never attempted to file charges in criminal court." Id.
[9] Additionally, the D.P. Court acknowledged the parties’ competing policy arguments for why the juvenile court did or did not have subject matter jurisdiction to waive D.P. and N.B. into adult court. Specifically, the State argued that "finding no subject matter jurisdiction in these cases would run afoul of legislative intent by effectively shortening the child-molesting statute of limitations for D.P., N.B., and those similarly situated." Id. at 1216. The State's argument was based on INDIANA CODE § 35-41-4-2(e)(1), which provides that a prosecution for child molesting may be commenced before the date the alleged victim reaches the age of thirty-one. The "competing policy argument" was that "accepting the State's position would lead to adults being punished many years after their youthful offenses, without any opportunity for juvenile rehabilitation." Id. at 1217. The D.P. Court noted, by example, that following the State's argument that the juvenile court had maintained jurisdiction for waiver purposes could potentially lead to the State being able to file a delinquency petition against N.B. when he was in his late thirties for acts that allegedly occurred when he was between twelve and fifteen years old. Id.
[10] The D.P. Court, however, concluded that it "need not decide whose policy argument carrie[d] more weight" because it was "bound by the plain language of the relevant juvenile-law provisions" that "unambiguous[ly]" provided that "the juvenile court d[id] not have the authority to waive D.P. and N.B. into adult criminal court." Id. The D.P. Court emphasized that "[t]o decide differently would require this Court to rewrite clearly written statutes, violating bedrock separation-of-powers principles." Id. Furthermore, the D.P. Court cautioned that if its interpretation of the juvenile statutes and its holding "was not the intent of the legislature," then it was the province of the legislature, not the Court, to "make the necessary statutory changes." Id.
[11] In light of the holding in D.P. , the State moved to dismiss Neukam's juvenile delinquency case. The juvenile court granted the motion and dismissed the juvenile case.
[12] Thereafter, on September 18, 2020, the State moved to amend the complaint in Neukam's adult criminal case to add the eight child molesting charges from Neukam's dismissed juvenile delinquency case. Again, these additional child molesting charges were alleged to have occurred when Neukam was under the age of eighteen. The State asserted that the proposed eight charges "constitute[d] an ongoing pattern of alleged criminal activity [that] began prior to [Neukam's] eighteenth (18th) birthday[.]" (App. Vol. 2 at 179). The State acknowledged that it had originally filed these eight charges in juvenile court and that they had been dismissed pursuant to our Indiana Supreme Court's holding in D.P. The State further alleged that Neukam would not be prejudiced by adding the eight charges to the complaint in Neukam's adult criminal case because he had been aware of the allegation since the time of Neukam's juvenile delinquency case.
[13] On September 24, 2020, the adult criminal court issued the interlocutory order at issue in this case and denied the State's motion to amend the complaint. The adult criminal court denied the motion "due to the age of [Neukam] at the time of the alleged offenses to be added to the charging information[.]" (...
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