Court Opinion

ID: 9561171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:04:39.649541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:40.471017
License: Public Domain

Judge Greene
concurring in the result.
I do not agree with the majority that, had M.H. been found incompetent to testify, “M.H.’s statements to her mother and her doctor would have been admissible through the doctor’s testimony under the medical diagnosis and treatment exception.” The record shows that M.H.’s doctor did not testify in this case. This Court cannot, when reviewing a case, make assumptions regarding evidence one of the parties would, have offered during the trial below when that party did not, in fact, offer the evidence. We must therefore assume, when considering the juvenile’s claim for ineffective assistance of counsel, that M.H. would have been found incompetent to testify, and the only evidence regarding M.H.’s statements came from Ms. Delzo’s testimony.
Defendant argues he received ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney failed to make a motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence of force, which is an element of second-degree sexual offense. N.C.G.S. § 14-27.5 (1999).
“To defeat a motion to dismiss on insufficiency of the evidence, there must be substantial evidence to establish each essential ele*27ment of the crime charged.” State v. Jordan, 321 N.C. 714, 717, 365 S.E.2d 617, 619 (1988). “Substantial evidence ‘must be existing and real,’ and is ‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’ ” Id. (quoting State v. Irwin, 304 N.C. 93, 98, 282 S.E.2d 439, 443 (1981)).
In this case, Ms. Delzo testified M.H. told her the juvenile “made her take her clothes off’ and “was licking her privates.” At the time of the incident, M.H. was three years old and the juvenile was twelve years old. A reasonable person could find, based on M.H.’s statement’s to her mother as well as M.H.’s age in relation to the age of the juvenile, that the juvenile used force against M.H. The evidence of force, therefore, was sufficient to withstand a motion to dismiss for insufficiency of evidence. Accordingly, I agree with the majority that failure of the juvenile’s attorney to make a motion to dismiss did not prejudice the juvenile’s defense, and the juvenile consequently did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel.