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Filed 2/22/24 In re J.M. CA3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for 

publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication 

or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT

(Sacramento)

----

In re J.M., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court 

Law.

C098401

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

J.M.,

Defendant and Appellant.

(Super. Ct. No. JV141426)

This is an appeal from the juvenile court’s finding that the minor J.M. committed 

lewd and lascivious acts upon a child under 14 by force or fear, in violation of Penal 

Code section 288, subdivision (b)(1). On appeal, J.M. argues the finding was not 

supported by sufficient evidence because the victim’s testimony was inherently 

improbable. We affirm.
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BACKGROUND

On September 24, 2021, the Sacramento County District Attorney filed a petition 

alleging that J.M. (the minor), committed lewd and lascivious acts against C.D., a 10-

year-old victim (the victim), in violation of Penal Code section 288, subdivision (b)(1). 

The victim was friends with the minor’s stepbrother, Z.B., who lived in the minor’s

home.1 The victim and Z.B. met when they were in the same class at school.

Sometime between February 14, 2017, and June 2017—when the minor was 13

years old—the victim’s mother dropped him off at the minor’s home for a sleepover. The 

victim, the minor, and Z.B. played video games and ate dinner, before going upstairs to 

the bedroom that Z.B. and the minor shared. Upstairs, Z.B. and the minor began to 

smoke marijuana, blowing it in the victim’s face, despite him asking them to stop. After

shutting the bedroom door, the minor and Z.B. tried to convince the victim to have sex 

with them. The victim described the minor’s behavior as “threatening” and “aggressive,”

causing him to eventually give in.

Z.B. and the minor told the victim to get on the ground, where Z.B. removed the 

victim’s clothes. They threatened to “beat the crap” out of the victim and kill him and his 

mom if he ever told anyone. Then, the minor sat on the bed, watching as Z.B. sodomized 

the victim. About three-quarters of the way through, Z.B. told the minor to go in the 

closet and the victim would be there in a minute. After 20 or 25 minutes, Z.B. ejaculated 

in the victim’s anus. Feeling sad, scared, and humiliated, the victim used a shirt to wipe

himself off. Z.B. then pushed the victim into the closet with the minor. The victim

described the closet as average size—about three feet deep and five or six feet wide—

with shirts on the floor. Once inside the closet, the minor pushed the victim’s head down 

and held his arms, forcing the victim to orally copulate him.

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 Z.B. was 12 or 13 years old at the time of the alleged offense. His exact age is 

unknown because the exact date of the offense is unknown.
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The three boys then went downstairs to play video games. However, when they 

got downstairs, Z.B. pushed the victim’s head down, forcing the victim to have oral sex 

with him, while the minor masturbated on the couch next to them. The victim tried to 

take Z.B.’s phone to call his mother, but Z.B. punched the victim to the ground, where 

three of the family dogs scratched at his back. Then, the boys went to sleep.

After the sleepover, the victim told his mother that the other boys were smoking 

marijuana and wouldn’t let him call her. The victim also asked his mother not to tell 

anyone because he feared retaliation. However, he did not disclose the sexual assault 

until about three years later, when he told his mother about the events. She did not 

immediately report it to the police because the victim “begged” her not to, as he felt

threatened and embarrassed. About six months later, she reported the incident to the 

police, with the victim’s permission.

On September 24, 2021, the court issued a warrant for the minor’s arrest. The 

minor was living in Oklahoma when he discovered the warrant and turned himself in. 

Beginning February 15, 2023, the juvenile court held a contested jurisdiction hearing, 

during which the victim testified to the aforementioned facts. Detective Robert Ranum, 

who interviewed the victim, testified that he found the victim credible. He observed the 

victim in the detective bureau parking lot before an interview. The victim was crying, 

holding on to his mother, and “seemed like he didn’t want to come into” the building. 

Detective Ranum also opined that delayed disclosures—from six months to six years

after an incident—are the “norm” in child sexual assault cases.

J.B.—the longtime girlfriend of the minor’s father, and the minor’s selfproclaimed stepmother—was home during the sleepover. She testified that, at the time of 

the incident, the minor’s bedroom door was missing due to damage from one of their 

dogs. She also testified four additional people were living in her home and sleeping in

the living room at the time. She explained that these people stored their belongings in the 

minor’s bedroom closet upstairs, making the closet extremely full. J.B. also claimed that 
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if anything had happened that night she would have known because her dogs would wake 

her with barking whenever someone moved or made noise in the house.

Following this hearing, the court sustained the petition against the minor, finding:

“The Court believes [the victim]’s story for a number of reasons. First, [the victim]’s

description of the sexual attacks, with all of its detail, has the ring of truth. 

“Second, [the victim]’s description of these events did not materially vary over 

two afternoons of direct examination and cross-examination by counsel for [Z.B.] and for 

[the minor]. 

“Third, [the victim]’s testimony was consistent with the statement he gave to the 

lead detective one and one-half years before trial, July 13, 2021, and largely consistent 

with his brief interview by a patrol officer six months before that on January 14, 2021. 

“Fourth, and most significantly, [the victim] had no motive to make up this 

narrative. [The victim] did not disclose the incident to anyone for approximately three 

years. As Detective Ranum explained, victims of sexual assault rarely make disclosures 

immediately after the assault, and may delay disclosure for up to six years. Here, in 

approximately July 2020, three years after the incident, [the victim] told his mother what 

had happened. If [the victim] were going to reveal this to anyone, his mother would be 

the safest person, and so he made disclosure to her, crying as he did so, and then 

continued to disclose to law enforcement, crying and reluctantly, and then at a public trial 

in front of the alleged perpetrators. 

“[The victim] testified that he was humiliated, disgusted, terrified and angry as a 

result of the sexual assaults, and the disclosure brought him additional pain and 

humiliation, now of a public nature. In this light, it is clear to the Court that [the victim] 

had no motivation to make up this disclosure.”

Additionally, the court found that “the testimony of [J.B.] was not credible,”

primarily because she provided an extremely detailed account of a supposedly 

unremarkable sleepover that occurred more than five and one-half years ago; the court 
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found her “power of recall [] hard to believe.” The court thus found beyond a reasonable 

doubt that the minor aided and abetted Z.B. in committing forcible sodomy as alleged in 

count one, and committed forcible oral copulation as alleged in count two. 

The minor filed a timely notice of appeal.

DISCUSSION

When considering a claim of insufficient evidence, we “ ‘ “examine the entire 

record in the light most favorable to the judgment to determine whether it contains 

substantial evidence.” ’ ” (People v. Clements (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 276, 298, quoting 

People v. San Nicolas (2004) 34 Cal.4th 614, 657-658.) “ ‘A reversal for insufficient 

evidence “is unwarranted unless it appears ‘that upon no hypothesis whatever is there 

sufficient substantial evidence to support’ ” the [fact finder’s] verdict.’ ” (People v. 

Penunuri (2018) 5 Cal.5th 126, 142, quoting People v. Zamudio (2008) 43 Cal.4th 327, 

357.) When reviewing for substantial evidence, we do not reevaluate witness credibility

because “[r]esolution of conflicts and inconsistencies in the testimony is the exclusive 

province of the trier of fact.” (People v. Young (2005) 34 Cal.4th 1149, 1181; see also 

People v. Ramirez (2002) 13 Cal.5th 997, 1118.) The same standard applies in juvenile 

cases. (In re V.V. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 1020, 1026.) Under this standard, the testimony of a 

single witness is sufficient to support a finding, unless the testimony is physically 

impossible or inherently improbable. (Young, at p. 1181.) 

Penal Code section 288, subdivision (b)(1) prohibits lewd acts on a child under the 

age of 14, by use of force or fear of bodily injury. To sustain this charge, the state must 

prove (1) the minor willfully touched a child’s body or caused the child to touch their 

own body or someone else’s; (2) using force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of 

immediate and unlawful bodily injury to the child or someone else; (3) with intent of 

arousing, appealing to, or gratifying his lust, passions, or sexual desires, and; (4) the child

victim was under 14 years old. (CALCRIM No. 1111.) 
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Here, the victim’s testimony alone was sufficient to support each element of the 

alleged offenses. (People v. Young, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 1181.) The victim provided 

substantial evidence of force, fear, or duress, when he testified that the minor participated

in the pre-assault coercion and threats. The victim also said he was “very scared” and 

that he “really, really wanted to scream for help, but they also had knives and stuff in the 

room, so I was also scared that they might kill me . . . they did threaten to kill me and my 

mother if I ever mentioned it to anyone.” After threatening the victim until he “gave in,” 

the minor stood by, watching as Z.B. sodomized the victim, supporting the court’s 

finding that the minor aided and abetted Z.B.’s act. Then the minor forced the victim to 

touch him for sexual purposes when he held the victim’s arms and pushed his head down, 

forcing him to perform oral sex until the minor ejaculated. Furthermore, the testimony of 

the victim’s mother and Detective Ranum, to whom the victim recounted similar versions

of the events, also support his credibility.

Nevertheless, the minor argues the victim’s “testimony concerning the marijuana, 

the closet, the sexual activity downstairs, the dog attack, Z.B.’s door and use of a cell 

phone was inherently improbable.” However, the kind of testimony challenged in this 

case, “ ‘ “which merely discloses unusual circumstances[,] does not come within [the 

inherently improbable] category. [Citation.]” ’ ” (People v. Maciel (2013) 57 Cal.4th 

482, 519.) For example, the minor argues the sexual attacks in the living room “could 

not have happened, because the parents could have gone downstairs at any time.” The 

fact that the parents could have gone downstairs, however, does not render the victim’s 

testimony either impossible or inherently improbable. 

Furthermore, “[t]he determination of inherent improbability must be made without 

resort to inference or deduction.” (People v. Ennis (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 721, 725.) 

Here, the alleged improbabilities in the victim’s testimony only appear upon comparison

with J.B.’s testimony, which the juvenile court expressly found not credible. For 

instance, it is neither inherently improbable nor physically impossible that two young 
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boys could fit in a closet, as the victim testified; any improbability in this testimony arises 

only when compared with J.B.’s testimony that the closet was full. The minor’s 

argument essentially asks us to reevaluate and make inferences about the credibility of a 

witness that the juvenile court reasonably found credible. In Ennis, the court rejected a

very similar argument. The defendant in that case claimed not that “it would [have been] 

impossible for him to have committed the acts of sexual abuse attributed to him, but 

instead suggest[ed] the [fact finder] should have inferred or deduced from . . . the other 

evidence admitted in the case, that each of these witnesses was lying.” (Ennis, at p. 730.) 

The appellate court affirmed, reasoning that the defendant’s “ ‘inferences and 

deductions’ ” argument was improper because the fact finder has the sole discretion to 

determine witness credibility. (Ibid.) 

So, too, in this case. The minor does not argue it was impossible that he

committed the alleged sexual assaults; instead, he argues the victim’s testimony is false

when compared with J.B.’s. Inherent improbability “cannot be established by comparing 

the challenged testimony to other evidence in the case.” (People v. Ennis, supra, 

190 Cal.App.4th at p. 725.) Thus, we do not find the victim’s testimony inherently 

improbable. Therefore, the victim’s testimony is sufficient evidence to sustain the 

petition. (People v. Penunuri, supra, 5 Cal.5th at p. 142.)
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DISPOSTION

The juvenile court’s order sustaining the petition is affirmed. 

 /s/

EARL, P. J.

We concur:

 /s/

ROBIE, J.

 /s/

MESIWALA, J.