In the Matter of J.U., 887 S.E.2d 859 (June 16, 2023)
Facts: The juvenile petition alleging sexual battery stated, “the juvenile did unlawfully, willfully engage in sexual contact with [B.A.] by touching [her] vaginal area, against the victim[’]s will for the purpose of sexual gratification.” On appeal following adjudication, the juvenile alleged that the petition was fatally defective for failing to allege the necessary element of force. The Court of Appeals agreed that the allegations in the petition were fatally defective in their failure to allege an application of force to the victim’s body sufficient to overcome any resistance the victim might make.
Opinion: Juvenile petitions serve essentially the same function as criminal indictments and are generally held to the same standards. Contemporary pleading requirements remove unnecessary technicalities of common law pleading requirements. Indictments need only satisfy statute and constitutional purposes (sufficiency to prepare a defense and protect against double jeopardy). The law evolved from requiring elemental specificity in the pleading to the requirement in G.S. 15A-924 that an indictment alleges facts supporting each essential element of the offense. Magic words are not required. All that is required is that the petition contains factual elements supporting the elements of the offense charged. Hyper-technical scrutiny of juvenile petitions is not required. They only need to clearly identify the crime being charged.
It is not possible to “engage in nonconsensual sexual contact with another person without the application of some force, however slight.” (Slip op. at 12, internal quotations omitted). Force was clearly inferable in the petition by alleging that the juvenile touched the victim’s vaginal area without her consent. The petition therefore contained the factual allegations necessary to support each element of misdemeanor sexual battery and complied with the statutory requirements. There was no jurisdictional defect resulting from the failure to explicitly include the element of force in the petition.