In Re Felton

706 N.E.2d 809, 124 Ohio App. 3d 500
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 19, 1997
DocketNo. 2-96-21.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 706 N.E.2d 809 (In Re Felton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Felton, 706 N.E.2d 809, 124 Ohio App. 3d 500 (Ohio Ct. App. 1997).

Opinions

Hadley, Judge.

This is an appeal from an Auglaize County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, judgment entry finding a juvenile to be unruly. For the following reasons, we affirm that decision.

The facts of the case arose as follows. On October 19, 1995, a fifteen-year-old female student at St. Mary’s High School told the assistant principal that another student had assaulted her. The young woman claimed that Chris Scott Felton, appellant, grabbed her breast during the change of classes.

Due to that conversation, the assistant principal called the St. Mary’s Police Department. He told the dispatcher that he was investigating a sexual assault claim and wished to have an officer present. Consequently, an officer went to the school.

Upon arriving at the high school, the officer spoke with the young woman. She repeated her story to the officer. Next, the assistant principal and the officer spoke with appellant about the incident. Appellant initially admitted to grabbing the young woman’s breast. However, upon later questioning, he denied grabbing her. Instead, he claimed he had been pointing toward her chest and accidentally poked her with his finger.

On November 29, 1995, appellant was charged with delinquency by sexual imposition in violation of R.C. 2907.06(A)(1), a third-degree misdemeanor if committed by an adult. Appellant denied the charge, and on April 11, 1996, the matter proceeded to trial. Four persons testified at the hearing. 1

At the conclusion of the hearing, the court requested both parties to brief, inter alia, the issue of whether unruliness was a lessor included offense to the charge. The court then issued its adjudication on May 15, 1996. In its opinion, the court held that without the victim’s testimony, the charge of sexual imposition was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the court further found that unruliness was a lessor included offense to the initial delinquency charge. Therefore, the court adjudicated appellant an unruly child pursuant to R.C. 2151.022(C).

A dispositional hearing was held on July 16, 1996. At that hearing, appellant was placed on probation for an indefinite period, subject to several terms and conditions.

*503 It is from this adjudication and subsequent sentence that appellant is now appealing, with the following two assignments of error.

Assignment of Error No. 1

“When a juvenile defendant is charged with delinquency and there is insufficient evidence to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the child committed an act which would be deemed a crime if committed by an adult, the court then commits error if it amends the complaint at the conclusion of the trial and subsequently finds the juvenile defendant to be unruly.”

Pursuant to Juv.R. 22(B), a trial court has the discretion to amend a complaint. Unless the juvenile court abuses its discretion in amending a complaint, we will not reverse that decision. See State v. Aller (1992), 82 Ohio App.3d 9, 12, 610 N.E.2d 1170, 1171-1172. “The term ‘abuse of discretion’ connotes more than an error of law or judgment; it implies that the court’s attitude is unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable.” State v. Adams (1980), 62 Ohio St.2d 151, 157, 16 O.O.3d 169, 173, 404 N.E.2d 144, 149; Ojalvo v. Ohio State Univ. Bd. of Trustees (1984), 12 Ohio St.3d 230, 232-233, 12 OBR 313, 314-316, 466 N.E.2d 875, 876-878. Therefore, absent a finding that the juvenile court abused its discretion, we will not substitute our judgment for the trier of fact. Berk v. Matthews (1990), 53 Ohio St.3d 161, 169, 559 N.E.2d 1301, 1308-1309.

Juv.R. 22(B) provides:

“(B) Amendment of pleadings. * * * After the commencement of the adjudi-, catory hearing, a pleading may be amended upon agreement of the parties or, if the interests of justice require, upon order of the court. A complaint charging an act of delinquency may not be amended unless agreed by the parties, if the proposed amendment would change the name or identity of the specific violation of law so that it would be considered a change of the crime charged if committed by an adult.”

In the present case, appellant was originally charged with delinquency by sexual imposition in violation of R.C. 2907.06(A)(1). A “delinquent child” has been defined as a child whose conduct constitutes a violation of any criminal law statute. In re Burgess (1984), 13 Ohio App.3d 374, 13 OBR 456, 469 N.E.2d 967; R.C. 2151.02. In contrast, an “unruly child” is defined as including “any child * * * [w]ho so deports himself as to injure or endanger the health or morals of himself or others.” R.C. 2151.022(C).

The record reflects that the underlying action on which appellant was tried was that of his allegedly grabbing the breast of a classmate. At appellant’s hearing, four witnesses testified. Three of the witnesses testified as to appel *504 lant’s allegedly grabbing the young woman’s breast. 2 Appellant’s attorney thoroughly cross-examined those witnesses as to their observations and testimony. Additionally, appellant put forth evidence in his own defense regarding the incident. Therefore, we find that the record demonstrates that appellant’s trial revolved around the issue of whether he grabbed a girl’s breast.

Moreover, the sole allegation in appellant’s complaint was that he grabbed a girl’s breast. The appellant had the opportunity to, and did, prepare and present a defense on this allegation. Cf. State v. Aller (1992), 82 Ohio App.3d 9, 12, 610 N. E.2d 1170, 1171-1172. The same facts formed the basis for both the original charge of delinquency and the amended charge of unruliness. Therefore, we hold that the trial court did not err in amending the complaint.

Accordingly, we overrule appellant’s first assignment of error.

Assignment of Error No. 2

“The court did not permit the juvenile defendant to present a defense to the charge of unruliness, failed to appropriately apply Juvenile Rule 22(B), and the manifest weight of the evidence and standard of evidence as set forth by the court did not support a finding of unruliness.”

Where an appellant asserts that the judgment is not supported by the manifest weight of the evidence, “the relevant inquiry is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Jenks (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 259, 574 N.E.2d 492, paragraph two of the syllabus.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
706 N.E.2d 809, 124 Ohio App. 3d 500, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-felton-ohioctapp-1997.