Court Opinion

ID: 9576639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:26:43.09491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:11:04.041525
License: Public Domain

Judge Edmunds
concurring in the result.
I concur with the majority holding that the four juvenile petitions that fail to allege the age of either the juvenile or the victim are fatally flawed. As to the fifth petition, I concur in the result, but on different *410grounds. I believe the State should not have been allowed to amend the petition on the day of trial.
The petition in question originally charged that “the juvenile did unlawfully and willfully and feloniously [] ravish and carnally know [the victim], by force and against the persons [sic] will. The offense charged here is in violation of G.S. 14-27.2.” On the morning of trial, the State moved to amend this charge to “a statutory offense.” Over respondent’s objection, the motion was allowed.
Section 7A-627 states:
The judge may permit a petition to be amended when the amendment does not change the nature of the offense alleged or the conditions upon which the petition is based. If a motion to amend is allowed, the juvenile shall be given a reasonable opportunity to prepare a defense to the amended allegations.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-627 (1995) (repealed effective 1 July 1999). This statute does not define the critical term “nature of the offense.” However, several cases provide guidance. In State v. Clements, 51 N.C. App. 113, 275 S.E.2d 222 (1981), a defendant was charged with death by motor vehicle. The State’s motion to amend the underlying traffic offense from “following too closely” to “failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident” was allowed. This Court affirmed the conviction, noting that both before and after the amendment defendant was charged with causing a death while violating a statute pertaining to operation of a motor vehicle. The Clements Court held that substituting a “substantially similar” motor vehicle violation for the violation originally alleged did not change the nature of the offense of “death by motor vehicle.” Id. at 116-17, 275 S.E.2d at 225. Similarly, in In re Jones, 11 N.C. App. 437, 181 S.E.2d 162 (1971), the respondent juvenile was charged with stealing lights from a parked vehicle. This Court held that an amendment that clarified the identity of the victim did not change the nature of the offense charged.
By comparison, in In re Davis, 114 N.C. App. 253, 441 S.E.2d 696 (1994), we held that amending a petition to charge the burning of personal property, in place of the original charge of setting fire to a public building, impermissibly changed the offense alleged against the juvenile. Finally, in State v. Drummond, 81 N.C. App. 518, 344 S.E.2d 328 (1986), we held that N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-27.2 (Supp. 1998) encompassed two types of first-degree rape and that a defendant *411was entitled to adequate notice of which of the two types the State was pursuing.
Based on the statute and the foregoing cases, I believe that statutory rape is an offense of a different nature from forcible rape. On one hand, these two offenses are charged in the same statute (unlike the two burning charges in Davis) and both have the same penalty. On the other hand, these offenses have different elements. Statutory rape is a strict liability offense that focuses on the age of the participants. See State v. Anthony, 133 N.C. App. 573, 578, 516 S.E.2d 195, 198 (1999) (citing Meads v. N.C. Dep’t of Agric., 349 N.C. 656, 674, 509 S.E.2d 165, 177 (1998)). The only intent necessary to commit statutory rape is the intent to have sexual intercourse. By contrast, forcible rape, in which the age of the parties is immaterial, requires an intent by the defendant to gratify his passions notwithstanding any resistance on the part of the victim. See State v. Nicholson, 99 N.C. App. 143, 392 S.E.2d 748 (1990). Statutory rape does not encompass violence, while forcible rape is a crime of violence as a matter of law. See State v. Rose, 335 N.C. 301, 439 S.E.2d 518 (1994). The significant differences between these forms of rape have led us to hold that a defendant was constitutionally entitled to be given notice of which form the State intended to prove at trial. See Drummond, 81 N.C. App. 518, 344 S.E.2d 328. I would hold that the amendment made by the State changed the “nature of the offense" and was therefore impermissible.