The Supreme Court of Maryland ruled July 22 that a juvenile court does not lose jurisdiction over a child between 10 and 12 years old when the court clears the child of the crime of violence that brought the case into juvenile court but finds the child involved in a lesser offense arising from the same incident. The court affirmed a Baltimore City delinquency finding and answered a question that determines whether the state's youngest respondents can be adjudicated after a violent charge fails.
The case concerns D.E., who was 12 when the State charged him with robbery and four related counts stemming from a February 13, 2024 encounter outside a Royal Farms store on Light Street in Baltimore. According to the opinion, D.E. followed a customer, Kelly Drnec, and took a small purse from her and a larger purse she had dropped, while someone threw liquid on her. The State charged robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, second-degree assault, felony theft, and misdemeanor theft.
Robbery is a crime of violence, and under the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2022 that allegation was what placed the 12-year-old within the juvenile court's exclusive original jurisdiction. The 2022 law generally bars delinquency proceedings against children under 13, with an exception for children at least 10 years old alleged to have committed a crime of violence or an act arising out of the same incident.
At the adjudicatory hearing, the contested question was one of sequence. The magistrate found that if the liquid was thrown before the taking, the force element of robbery was met, and if it was thrown after, the offense was theft. She framed it directly: "Was the liquid thrown at her and then the items taken from her? In which case, you've got an assault and a robbery. Was the liquid thrown at her after her items were taken? In which case you have a theft." Finding the victim's testimony on timing internally inconsistent, the magistrate reserved her ruling, then returned weeks later to find D.E. not involved in the robbery but involved in misdemeanor theft.
D.E. moved to dismiss, arguing that once the court declined to sustain the robbery, the only jurisdiction-qualifying offense, it lost jurisdiction over a 12-year-old who could otherwise be brought to juvenile court only on a misdemeanor. The magistrate denied the motion, placed D.E. on six months' probation, and a juvenile court judge later denied his exceptions. The Supreme Court granted certiorari before the Appellate Court of Maryland heard the appeal.
Writing for the court, Justice Killough held that jurisdiction attached when the State filed the petition and that nothing in the Juvenile Causes subtitle divested the court of that authority. The opinion drew a distinction between two statutory provisions doing different jobs: Section 3-8A-03 governs how a juvenile court obtains jurisdiction, while Section 3-8A-07(a) governs how long that jurisdiction lasts. The latter provides that once obtained, "that jurisdiction continues until that person reaches 21 years of age unless terminated sooner."
The court characterized jurisdiction under the same-incident clause as derivative at filing but durable thereafter. A petition must contain a crime-of-violence allegation to anchor a related nonviolent charge against a 12-year-old, the court explained, but that dependence is satisfied at the moment of filing and does not require the anchor charge to survive adjudication. Both clauses use the phrase "alleged to have committed," which the court read as a charging-stage condition, not a running one. A not-sustained finding, the court held, is not among the events the General Assembly listed as terminating jurisdiction.
The court reasoned that D.E.'s reading would produce untenable results. If "alleged to have committed" imposed a condition that had to persist throughout the case, jurisdiction would evaporate at the close of every adjudication, including those that fully sustain the violent charge, because the allegations would cease to be allegations once proven. The court also warned that D.E.'s position would foreclose plea benefits for the youngest respondents, since admitting to a lesser charge would instantly dissolve the jurisdictional anchor and force dismissal. The opinion adopted the reasoning of the Appellate Court's 2024 decision in In re J.B., which reached the same conclusion where a violent charge was resolved by nolle prosequi.
The court rejected D.E.'s equal protection challenge under rational basis review. A 12-year-old for whom probable cause exists to allege a crime of violence is not similarly situated to a child charged only with a misdemeanor, the court held, and sorting cases by the seriousness of the allegation bears a rational relationship to a legitimate interest. The opinion found ample probable cause for the robbery charge and no evidence of selective prosecution, noting the magistrate had called the robbery-versus-theft question a close one.
The ruling means Maryland prosecutors can continue to pursue lesser, nonviolent counts against children aged 10 to 12 even after the anchoring crime of violence fails at a hearing, and that such children retain access to plea resolutions on reduced charges. The court noted that the General Assembly, rather than contracting jurisdiction after In re J.B., enacted the Juvenile Law Reform Act of 2024 to expand the offenses that can anchor jurisdiction for that age group. "If the statutory text is to be changed," the court concluded, "the General Assembly must change it." The order of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City was affirmed.