Title: K.C.G. v. State
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 20S-JV-263
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: November 16, 2020

I N  T H E
Indiana Supreme Court 
Supreme Court Case No. 20S-JV-263 
K.C.G.,
Appellant, 
–v–
State of Indiana, 
Appellee. 
Argued: June 11, 2020 | Decided: November 16, 2020 
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court 
Nos. 49D09-1811-JD-1368, 49D09-1901-JD-88 
The Honorable Marilyn A. Moores, Judge 
The Honorable Geoffrey Gaither, Magistrate 
On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals 
Case No. 19A-JV-978 
Opinion by Justice Slaughter 
Chief Justice Rush and Justices David, Massa, and Goff concur. 
FILED
C L E R K
Indiana Supreme Court
Court of Appeals
and Tax Court
Nov 16 2020, 2:02 pm
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 2 of 7 
Slaughter, Justice. 
Under Indiana law, only juvenile courts have power to adjudicate a 
child a delinquent. The delinquency alleged here is that respondent, 
K.C.G., age 16, committed the offense of dangerous possession of a 
firearm. We hold that the juvenile court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. 
Juvenile courts have “exclusive original jurisdiction” to hear proceedings 
in which the State alleges that a child committed “an act that would be an 
offense”—a crime—"if committed by an adult.” Yet under the governing 
statute, an adult can never commit this offense. The statute defines the 
offense solely in terms of a “child” with an unauthorized firearm. Having 
previously granted transfer, we vacate K.C.G.’s delinquency adjudication 
and the modification of his probation based on that adjudication. And we 
remand with instructions to dismiss the State’s petition. 
I 
In November 2018, K.C.G. stole a car, crashed it, and fled the scene. 
After police caught him, they searched his person and found marijuana. 
The State alleged that K.C.G. committed four delinquent acts, and the 
parties agreed that K.C.G. would admit to two delinquent acts in 
exchange for the State dismissing the other two. The juvenile court 
accepted the agreement, placed K.C.G. on probation, and, relevant here, 
ordered him to attend a day-reporting program, which offers a structured 
setting for rehabilitating juvenile offenders. 
 
The rehabilitation did not last long. A week into his program, K.C.G. 
told others at his day-reporting site that he had a gun and a bomb and 
threatened to use one of them. His probation officer, along with police, 
went to his home and searched his bedroom. During the search, police 
found a rifle and arrested K.C.G. The State later filed a delinquency 
petition alleging he had violated the dangerous-possession-of-a-firearm 
statute, Ind. Code § 35-47-10-5. After a hearing, the juvenile court 
adjudicated him a delinquent on this latest charge and modified his 
probation. The court again placed K.C.G. on probation, this time with a 
suspended commitment to the department of correction. 
 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 3 of 7 
K.C.G. appealed and argued two points: first, the plain terms of the 
dangerous-possession statute showed it could not be a delinquent act; 
second, the State did not present sufficient evidence of the offense. The 
court of appeals affirmed the juvenile court. K.C.G. v. State, 137 N.E.3d 
1044, 1050 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), trans. granted, 145 N.E.3d 116 (Ind. 2020). 
It held that the legislature intended the dangerous-possession statute to be 
the basis of a delinquency adjudication and that the evidence was 
sufficient to sustain his adjudication. K.C.G., 137 N.E.3d at 1048–50. K.C.G. 
then sought transfer, which we granted. 
 
II 
 
Juvenile courts, as creatures of statute, can adjudicate only those 
disputes our legislature has authorized. D.P. v. State, 151 N.E.3d 1210, 
1213 (Ind. 2020). When the legislature sets out “statutory jurisdictional 
prerequisites”, and those are not met, “the juvenile court has no power to 
hear and decide the matter.” Id. Relevant here, juvenile courts have 
“exclusive original jurisdiction” over proceedings in which a “child”—a 
person less than 18 years of age—is “alleged to be a delinquent child 
under IC 31-37.” See I.C. §§ 31-9-1-1, 31-9-2-13(d)(1), 31-30-1-1(1). A 
“delinquent child” is one who commits a “delinquent act” under Chapter 
31-37-1, id. § 31-37-1-1, defined as an act “that would be an offense if 
committed by an adult”. Id. § 31-37-1-2. Thus, for the State to invoke the 
juvenile court’s jurisdiction, it must allege the respondent is a child who 
committed an act that would be a crime if an adult did it. See D.P., 151 
N.E.3d at 1213. 
Here, the State filed its petition under Section 31-30-1-1 and incanted 
Section 31-37-1-2. The petition purports to allege that K.C.G. was a 
“delinquent child”, and that his conduct “would [have been] an offense if 
committed by an adult”, id. § 31-37-1-2. The alleged conduct, according to 
the State, was misdemeanor “dangerous possession of a firearm”. Yet the 
dangerous-possession statute defines the offense in terms of a “child” who 
“knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly possesses a firearm for any 
purpose other than a purpose described in [IC 35-47-10-1].” I.C. § 35-47-
10-5(a). This provision is clear and applies only to children; adults cannot 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 4 of 7 
commit dangerous possession of a firearm. Thus, K.C.G.’s alleged 
possession of a firearm could never be an offense committed by an adult, 
and the State’s nominal allegation that K.C.G. is a “delinquent child” 
because he committed a “delinquent act” failed as a matter of law, 
meaning the juvenile court lacked jurisdiction. 
Perhaps anticipating our “means-what-it-says” interpretive approach, 
the State points to the second sentence in Subsection 35-47-10-5(a), which 
provides for an enhancement to a Level 5 felony for a juvenile adjudged 
delinquent for the dangerous-possession offense: “However, the offense is 
a Level 5 felony if the child … has been adjudicated a delinquent for an act 
that would be an offense under this section if committed by an adult.” Id. 
According to the State, this provision shows the legislature intended that 
juveniles can be adjudicated delinquent for violating this statute. 
The State’s position is not without force, and it has the virtue of 
reflecting prevailing law as announced by our court of appeals. See, e.g., 
C.C. v. State, 907 N.E.2d 556, 558 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009); J.S. v. State, 114 
N.E.3d 518, 519 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (affirming delinquency adjudication 
for dangerous possession of a firearm); J.G. v. State, 93 N.E.3d 1112, 1125 
(Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (same). But we decline to embrace that approach. 
Rather than crediting the asserted intent behind the criminal statute, 
I.C. § 35-47-10-5, we give dispositive weight to the plain language of the 
jurisdictional statute, id. § 31-30-1-1. As shown above, the jurisdictional 
statute establishes that the State must allege the child committed an “act 
that would be an offense if committed by an adult”. Id. § 31-37-1-2. Even if 
the State were correct about legislative intent, we decline to ignore the 
clear jurisdictional mandate of Section 31-30-1-1 based on an inference 
from an entirely separate statute. 
Our position finds further support from the fact that we have long 
interpreted criminal statutes strictly against the State, Suggs v. State, 51 
N.E.3d 1190, 1194 (Ind. 2016), and it is undisputed that the statute at issue 
here defines a crime with possible penal consequences. True, Section 5(a)’s 
second sentence shows the legislature likely intended to subject children 
who possess unauthorized firearms to delinquency adjudications. But the 
section’s first sentence defines the offense solely in terms of a “child”, and 
thus the offense could never be “committed by an adult”. I.C. § 31-37-1-2. 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 5 of 7 
When the legislature is imprecise, the State does not get the benefit of the 
doubt. 
Alternatively, the State argues that the juvenile court derived its 
jurisdiction from another provision—namely, Subsection 31-30-1-1(14).  
The State says that dangerous possession of a firearm is a “proceeding” 
under Subsection 31-30-1-1(14), which gives juvenile courts exclusive 
original jurisdiction to hear “[o]ther proceedings specified by law.” 
Support for this view comes from C.C., 907 N.E.2d 556, in which the court 
of appeals said that the dangerous-possession statute “fits within this 
[catch-all] category”. Id. at 558.  
We reject this interpretation for two reasons. First, a statute merely 
defining a criminal offense is not a “proceeding”. Second, a proceeding 
cannot simultaneously be a “proceeding in which a child . . . is alleged to 
be a delinquent child” and some “other proceeding specified by law.” 
Compare I.C. § 31-30-1-1(1), with -1(14) (cleaned up). Section 31-30-1-1 
lists fourteen types of “proceedings” where a juvenile court has original 
jurisdiction. By using the modifier “other” to describe “proceedings” 
under Subsection 1(14), the statute distinguishes those proceedings from 
proceedings under the first thirteen subsections, including Subsection 1(1). 
This construction of our statute is neither novel nor at odds with accepted 
interpretative canons. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The 
Interpretation of Legal Texts 69–77, 167–79 (2012) (discussing the 
ordinary-meaning, whole-text, and surplusage canons, as well as the 
presumption of consistent usage). If we were to accept the State’s 
proposed interpretation of 1(14), we would have to ignore the plain 
meaning of “other” and resort to interpretive gymnastics to say why the 
legislature wrote two subsections conferring jurisdiction over proceedings 
in which a child is alleged to be delinquent. In other words, if the State 
were correct, then 1(14) would swallow 1(1) and render it superfluous. 
Because of these problems, we reject C.C.’s characterization of the 
dangerous-possession statute as some “other proceeding specified by 
law.” I.C. § 31-30-1-1(14) (cleaned up). 
Finally, we address the absurdity doctrine—a narrow, limited 
exception to our interpretive canon that a statute’s plain meaning controls. 
For the absurdity doctrine to apply, we require two showings. First, “the 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 6 of 7 
text must impose an outcome no reasonable person could intend”, R.R. v. 
State, 106 N.E.3d 1037, 1042 (Ind. 2018); and, second, a court must be able 
to fix the resulting absurdity by “changing or supplying a particular word 
or phrase whose inclusion or omission was obviously a technical or 
ministerial error”. Scalia & Garner, supra, at 238; see R.R., 106 N.E.3d at 
1042. 
We hold that the doctrine fails on the second prong. We could not “fix” 
the alleged absurdity here merely by changing or supplying a word or 
phrase. Any judicial fix would require that we expand the dangerous-
possession statute’s potential class of offenders to include adults with 
unauthorized firearms. Yet this proposed revision would implicate not 
only separation of powers by rewriting the legislature’s narrow enactment 
but also perhaps the Second Amendment by treating even protected 
firearms as potentially off limits to adults, see McDonald v. Chicago, 561 
U.S. 742 (2010); District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008). Moreover, 
applying the doctrine here would be qualitatively different from our other 
applications of it. See, e.g., Estabrook v. Mazak Corp., 140 N.E.3d 830, 835–36 
(Ind. 2020) (upholding unchallenged, nearly forty-year-old precedent 
interpreting “or” as “and”). Thus, we reject the absurdity doctrine on this 
record and interpret the dangerous-possession statute not to apply to 
adults. 
*          *          * 
For these reasons, we hold that the juvenile court lacked subject-matter 
jurisdiction. The State’s petition did not (because, as a matter of law, it 
could not) allege a jurisdictional prerequisite—that K.C.G.’s conduct was 
“an act that would be an offense if committed by an adult”. We vacate the 
juvenile court’s adjudication of K.C.G. as a delinquent child for 
dangerously possessing a firearm, as well as its modification of his 
probation based on that holding. We remand with instructions to dismiss 
the State’s petition. 
Rush, C.J., and David, Massa, and Goff, JJ., concur. 
 
Indiana Supreme Court | Case No. 20S-JV-263 | November 16, 2020 
Page 7 of 7 
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL LA N T  
Joel M. Schumm 
Indianapolis, Indiana 
A TT O R N E YS F O R  AP P EL LE E  
Curtis T. Hill, Jr. 
Attorney General of Indiana 
Ellen H. Meilaender 
Office of the Indiana Attorney General 
Indianapolis, Indiana