State v. Jones

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. 336A17
Filed 26 October 2018
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
DARYL LAMONT JONES
Appeal pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2) from the decision of a divided panel of
the Court of Appeals, ___ N.C. App. ___, 805 S.E.2d 701 (2017), finding no error in a
judgment entered on 15 June 2016 by Judge George B. Collins, Jr. in Superior Court,
Wake County. Heard in the Supreme Court on 16 April 2018.
Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General, by Robert C. Montgomery, Senior Deputy
Attorney General, and Daniel P. O’Brien, Special Deputy Attorney General, for
the State.
Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by James R. Grant, Assistant Appellate
Defender, for defendant-appellant.
MORGAN, Justice.
Defendant Daryl Lamont Jones was convicted of operating a motor vehicle
when having an open container of alcohol in the passenger compartment while alcohol
remained in his system. Defendant appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals
which, in a divided opinion, found that the citation that charged the offense was
legally sufficient to properly invoke the trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. State
v. Jones, ___ N.C. App. ___, ___, 805 S.E.2d 701, 706 (2017). The dissenting judge did
STATE V. JONES
Opinion of the Court
not believe that the citation met the statutory requirements for a valid criminal
pleading in this State. Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 712. Upon review, we conclude that
the citation sufficiently and properly vested the trial court with subject-matter
jurisdiction in this criminal proceeding and we thus affirm the decision of the Court
of Appeals.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
On 4 January 2015, while driving his vehicle in Wake County, defendant was
cited for speeding and charged with operating a motor vehicle when having an open
container of alcohol while alcohol remained in his system. Defendant was not charged
with driving while impaired. The fill-in-the-blanks citation form utilized by the
charging officer stated that the officer
has probable cause to believe that on . . . Sunday, the 04
day of January, 2015 at 10:16PM in the county named
above [defendant] did unlawfully and willfully
OPERATE A MOTOR VEHICLE ON A STREET OR
HIGHWAY AT A SPEED OF 62 MPH IN A 45 MPH ZONE
(G.S. 20-141(J1))
and on . . . Sunday, the 04 day of January, 2015 at 10:16PM
in the county named above [defendant] did unlawfully and
willfully WITH AN OPEN CONTAINER OF ALCOHOLIC
BEVERAGE AFTER DRINKING (G.S. 20-138.7(A))[.]
(Underlined language added by the officer to supply the pertinent information
regarding the charged offenses in the blanks provided on the citation).
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Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the open container charge on grounds that
the citation was fatally defective such that the trial court lacked jurisdiction. The
district court denied the motion and found defendant guilty as charged of both
offenses. Defendant appealed his convictions to the Superior Court, Wake County.
On 15 June 2016, a jury found defendant guilty of operating a vehicle while having
an open container but found him not guilty of speeding. Defendant was sentenced on
the same day to a twenty-day term of incarceration, which was suspended subject to
six months of unsupervised probation. Defendant appealed his conviction to the
Court of Appeals.
In the Court of Appeals, defendant argued that the trial court lacked
jurisdiction to try him for operating a motor vehicle while having an open container
because the citation purporting to charge him with that offense failed to allege all of
its essential elements. Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 705. In a divided opinion filed on 5
September 2017, the Court of Appeals found no error. The majority of the court
explained that N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(c) establishes requirements for citations like the
one issued here. The majority further noted that the official commentary to Article
49, “Pleadings and Joinder,” which is part of the Criminal Procedure Act embodied in
Chapter 15A, states that a citation, which “constitutes the ‘pleading’ for misdemeanor
criminal cases, . . . . ‘requires only that the crime be “identified.” ’ ” Id. at ___, 805
S.E.2d at 703. The commentary further states that a defendant has the right under
N.C.G.S. § 15A-922(c) to object to the description of the crime in a citation and
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Opinion of the Court
“require a more formal pleading.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 704 (emphasis omitted)
(quoting N.C.G.S. ch. 15A, art. 49 official cmt. (2015)). Therefore, the majority
concluded that “[t]o the extent there was a deficiency in the citation, [d]efendant had
the right to object to trial on the citation by filing a motion” requiring that he “be
charged in a new pleading,” with any such objection being filed in the district court
division. Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 704 (quoting N.C.G.S. § 15A-922(c) (2015)).
The Court of Appeals majority determined that the citation complied with
N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(c) because the charging instrument “properly identified the crime
of having an open container of alcohol in the car while alcohol remained in his system,
charged by citing N.C.[G.S.] § 20-138.7(a) and stating [d]efendant had an open
container of alcohol after drinking.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 705. The majority
reiterated that
[b]ecause [d]efendant failed to file a motion pursuant to
[N.C.G.S. §] 15A-922(c) [to object to the citation at the
district court level], he was no longer in a position to assert
his statutory right to object to trial on citation, or to the
sufficiency of the allegations set forth in [N.C.G.S. §] 20-
138.7(g).
Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 705.
The court’s majority went on to add that even assuming, arguendo, that
defendant was not required to object to the contents of the citation, “the failure to
comply with N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-924(a)(5) by neglecting to allege facts supporting every
element of an offense in a citation is not a jurisdictional defect.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d
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Opinion of the Court
at 705. Unlike the requirements for an indictment, the State constitution does not
require “a citation charging a misdemeanor to allege each element as a prerequisite
of the district court’s jurisdiction.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 705. As a result, “any
failure of a law enforcement officer to include each element of the crime in a citation
is not fatal to the district court’s jurisdiction.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 706.
Furthermore, the majority found that “the record establishes that [d]efendant was
apprised of the charge against him and would not be subject to double jeopardy.” Id.
at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 706.
The dissenting judge reasoned that the citation was defective due to its failure
to allege facts that “would support the elements of the offense” with which defendant
was charged. Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 712 (Zachary, J., dissenting). She disagreed
with the majority’s determination that defendant’s failure to object to the citation in
the court of original jurisdiction—here, the district court—precluded his challenge to
jurisdiction. Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 707. The dissent noted that N.C.G.S. § 15A-
1446(d) allows a defendant to assert errors on appellate review based upon the failure
of a pleading “to state essential elements of an alleged violation as required by
[N.C.]G.S. § 15A-924(a)(5),” even if no objection was made in the trial division because
a challenge to subject-matter jurisdiction can be raised at any time. Id. at ___, 805
S.E.2d at 707. The dissent noted that the majority opinion relied primarily on the
language of N.C.G.S. § 15A-302, which describes the information that a valid citation
must contain; however, the dissent distinguished between a citation used as a
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Opinion of the Court
process, which serves as a directive that a person appear in court and answer a
misdemeanor or infraction charge or charges, and a citation used as a criminal
pleading, which must assert facts supporting every element of a criminal offense and
the defendant’s commission thereof. Id. at ___, ___, 805 S.E.2d at 706, 708. The
dissent concluded that the majority “fails to acknowledge this issue or to articulate a
basis for applying the requirements for use of a citation as a form of process, rather
than the specific statutory criteria for use of a citation as a criminal pleading.” Id. at
___, 805 S.E.2d at 710.
For those reasons, the dissenting judge stated that she would hold that, “upon
application of the plain language of the statutes governing criminal pleadings in
North Carolina, the citation is invalid.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 707. The dissenting
opinion included the following passage:
In sum, N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-921 expressly states that a
citation may serve as the State’s pleading in a criminal
case, and N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-924(a)(5) requires that every
criminal pleading must contain facts supporting each of the
elements of the criminal offense with which the defendant
is charged. There do not appear to be any appellate cases
holding that N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-924 does not apply to a
citation used as the pleading in a criminal case. Under the
plain language of these statutes, when a citation is used by
the State as the pleading in a criminal case, it must—like
any other criminal pleading—allege facts that support the
elements of the offense with which the defendant is
charged.
Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 709. The dissent opined that the citation “fail[ed] to allege
that defendant operated a motor vehicle on a public road or highway, or even that he
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Opinion of the Court
drove,” or “that the open container of alcohol was in the passenger area of defendant’s
car.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 709. Accordingly, the dissent concluded that “[t]he
citation fails to allege facts that would support two of the three elements of the
offense: that defendant drove on a public highway, or that he had an open container
of alcohol in the passenger area of the car.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 709. The dissent
concluded that, “[a]s a result, the citation did not comply with the requirements of
N.C.[G.S.] § 15A-924 [governing contents of pleadings] and did not confer subject
matter jurisdiction upon the trial court.” Id. at ___, 805 S.E.2d at 709.
II. Analysis
North Carolina General Statutes section 15A-921 states: “[T]he following may
serve as pleadings of the State in criminal cases:
(1) Citation.
(2) Criminal summons.
(3) Warrant for arrest.
(4) Magistrate’s order . . . after arrest without warrant.
(5) Statement of charges.
(6) Information.
(7) Indictment.”
N.C.G.S. § 15A-921 (2017). Defendant was issued a citation for a misdemeanor
offense and ordered to appear in the District Court, Wake County. “Exclusive original
jurisdiction of all misdemeanors is in the district courts of North Carolina.” State v.
Felmet, 302 N.C. 173, 174, 273 S.E.2d 708, 710 (1981) (citing N.C.G.S. § 7A-272)).
The criminal pleading that initiated proceedings against defendant in the
present case is a citation. “A citation is a directive, issued by a law enforcement officer
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Opinion of the Court
or other person authorized by statute, that a person appear in court and answer a
misdemeanor or infraction charge or charges.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(a) (2017). A law
enforcement officer is authorized to “issue a citation to any person who he has
probable cause to believe has committed a misdemeanor or infraction.” Id. § 15A-
302(b) (2017). Statutory mandates require that a citation:
(1) Identify the crime charged, including the date,
and where material, identify the property and
other persons involved,
(2) Contain the name and address of the person
cited, or other identification if that cannot be
ascertained,
(3) Identify the officer issuing the citation, and
(4) Cite the person to whom issued to appear in a
designated court, at a designated time and date.
Id. § 15A-302(c) (2017).
While N.C.G.S. § 15A-302 clearly establishes that a citation is sufficient to be
utilized as a criminal pleading as authorized by N.C.G.S. § 15A-921(1), nevertheless,
it is appropriate and instructive to reconcile the efficacy and properness of its usage
in light of N.C.G.S. § 15A-924(a)(5). N.C.G.S. § 15A-924(a)(5) states that a criminal
pleading must contain:
A plain and concise factual statement in each count which,
without allegations of an evidentiary nature, asserts facts
supporting every element of a criminal offense and the
defendant’s commission thereof with sufficient precision
clearly to apprise the defendant or defendants of the
conduct which is the subject of the accusation. When the
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Opinion of the Court
pleading is a criminal summons, warrant for arrest, or
magistrate’s order, or statement of charges based thereon,
both the statement of the crime and any information
showing probable cause which was considered by the
judicial official and which has been furnished to the
defendant must be used in determining whether the
pleading is sufficient to meet the foregoing requirement.
Id. § 15A-924(a)(5) (2017).
At first blush, it appears that the statutory provisions of N.C.G.S. § 15A-302
and N.C.G.S. § 15A-921(1), when read together, are in conflict with the terms
contained in N.C.G.S. § 15A-924(a)(5). N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-302 and 15A-921(1) jointly
establish that a citation sufficiently operates as a criminal pleading when it merely
complies with the requirement, inter alia, to “[i]dentify the crime charged”; N.C.G.S.
§ 15A-924(a)(5), on the other hand, mandates a fuller recitation in a criminal pleading
of “[a] plain and concise factual statement in each count which . . . asserts facts
supporting every element of a criminal offense.” This seeming inconsistency between
and among the statutory enactments at issue in the present case is readily resolved
by the Official Commentary to Article 49 of the North Carolina General Statutes.
While N.C.G.S. § 15A-924 sets forth specific requirements for criminal
pleadings, the opening Official Commentary to Article 49, “Pleadings and Joinder”—
within which N.C.G.S. § 15A-924 is found—expressly discusses citations used as
pleadings. See id. ch. 15A, art. 49 official cmt. (2017). “[T]he commentary to a
statutory provision can be helpful in some cases in discerning legislative intent.”
Parsons v. Jefferson-Pilot Corp., 333 N.C. 420, 425, 426 S.E.2d 685, 689 (1993)
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Opinion of the Court
(citations omitted). The commentary to Article 49 delineates the evolution and
application of different types of pleadings which are employable for the prosecution
of criminal cases in North Carolina, while particularly noting the requirements that
make each one legally sufficient. N.C.G.S. ch. 15A, art. 49 official cmt. In comparing
and contrasting the required components of these various criminal pleadings, the
Official Commentary details the salient considerations which are endemic to the first
four criminal pleading forms which were recognized in this State before the
introduction of the citation form: “warrants and criminal summonses in
misdemeanor cases and informations and indictments in felony cases.” Id. Concepts
such as sufficiency of the pleading, the statement of the crime, a showing of probable
cause, an order for arrest, an order to appear, an order of commitment or bail, and
provisions for supplemental information are all identified and compared for each of
the original four types of criminal pleadings in North Carolina. Id. On the other
hand, in contrast to these other types of criminal pleadings, the Official Commentary
instructs that a citation simply needs to identify the crime that is being charged:
It should be noted that the citation (G.S. 15A-302)
requires only that the crime be “identified,” less than is
required in the other processes. This is a reasonable
difference, since it will be prepared by an officer on the
scene. It still may be used as the pleading, but rather than
get into sufficiency of the pleading in such a case the
[Criminal Code] Commission simply gives the defendant
the right to object and require a more formal pleading. G.S.
15A-922(c).
Id. (emphasis added).
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Opinion of the Court
Here, the fill-in-the-blanks citation form showed that the charging officer
has probable cause to believe that on or about Sunday, the
04 day of January, 2015 at 10:16PM in the county named
above [defendant] did unlawfully and willfully
OPERATE A MOTOR VEHICLE ON A STREET OR
HIGHWAY AT A SPEED OF 62 MPH IN A 45 MPH ZONE
(G.S. 20-141(J1))
and on . . . Sunday, the 04 day of January, 2015 at 10:16PM
in the county named above [defendant] did unlawfully and
willfully WITH AN OPEN CONTAINER OF ALCOHOLIC
BEVERAGE AFTER DRINKING (G.S. 20-138.7(A))[.]
A studious focus on the applicable statutes, official commentaries to those
statutes, and relevant case law demonstrates that the citation in the case at bar is a
criminal pleading that is sufficient to authorize the trial court to exercise jurisdiction
over the charged criminal misdemeanor offense, while giving appropriate notice to
defendant of the offense for which he is being compelled to appear in court. The
citation at issue fulfills the salient requirements of N.C.G.S. § 15A-302, and therefore
this charging instrument is in compliance with the statute in that it was a directive
issued by a law enforcement officer for defendant to appear in court to answer the
misdemeanor charge of driving a motor vehicle on a highway while there is an
alcoholic beverage in the passenger area in other than the unopened manufacturer’s
original container and while the driver is consuming alcohol or while alcohol remains
in the driver’s body, thereby satisfying N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(a); the citation was issued
to defendant by the charging officer based upon the officer’s determination that
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Opinion of the Court
probable cause existed to believe that the misdemeanor offense had been committed
by defendant, thereby satisfying N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(b); and the citation identified
the crime charged, contained the name and address of defendant, identified the
charging officer, and directed defendant to appear in the District Court, Wake County
in Courtroom 101 on Thursday, February 19, 2015 between the hours of 7:45 a.m.
and 3:30 p.m., thereby satisfying N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(c).1
It is at this juncture in the analysis that the learned dissent in the appellate
court below begins to veer from the proper course, because the dissent focuses upon
the manner in which the statement of the charged crime is conveyed in the entirety
of the citation instead of the substance of the statement of the charged crime in the
whole citation. Although the dissent is discomforted by the fragmented language that
was utilized by the charging officer in composing the details of the misdemeanor
charge, nonetheless, the contents of the citation at issue as drafted by the officer
comport with the substantive requirements delineated in N.C.G.S. § 15A-302(c) and
suit the practical considerations afforded by the Official Commentary to Article 49,
“Pleadings and Joinder,” of the North Carolina General Statutes.
If defendant had concerns about the level of detail contained in the citation,
N.C.G.S. § 15A-922(c) expressly provides that “[a] defendant charged in a citation
with a criminal offense may by appropriate motion require that the offense be charged
1 Because the speeding charge which was also alleged in the citation is not relevant
to this analysis, any discussion of it is purposely omitted.
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Opinion of the Court
in a new pleading.” Id. § 15A-922(c) (2017). This opportunity is afforded to a
defendant in recognition of the fact that N.C.G.S. § 15A-302 “provides for a separate
criminal process, applicable to any misdemeanor.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-302 (2017).
Additionally, in light of this classification of a citation as a “separate criminal process”
that is required only to identify the crime at issue instead of providing a more
exhaustive “statement of the crime” as required in the other criminal pleadings, a
defendant such as the current one is given the right to object and require a more
formal pleading under N.C.G.S. § 15A-922(c). See id. ch. 15A, art. 49 official cmt.
The dissent in the appellate court below misidentifies this statutory right of a
defendant to require a criminal pleading more formal than a citation while the charge
is still pending in the court of original jurisdiction by conflating it with a defendant’s
challenge to a trial court’s jurisdiction over a criminal matter that can be raised even
on appeal. While a defendant is entitled to require the State to file a statement of
charges if he objects to being tried by citation alone, after defendant here did not
object to trial by citation in the court of original jurisdiction, he was no longer entitled
to assert that right. See State v. Monroe, 57 N.C. App. 597, 599, 292 S.E.2d 21, 22
(1982) (citing Felmet, 302 N.C. 173, 273 S.E.2d 708); see also State v. Phillips, 149
N.C. App. 310, 318, 560 S.E.2d 852, 857, appeal dismissed, 355 N.C. 499, 564 S.E.2d
230 (2002). In the case at bar, because defendant did not invoke his right through an
appropriate motion filed in District Court, Wake County to have the State charge him
in a new pleading while the matter was still pending in its court of original
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Opinion of the Court
jurisdiction, defendant was precluded from challenging the citation in another
tribunal on those grounds because he was no longer in a position to assert his
statutory right to object to trial on citation after jurisdiction had been established and
his case had been determined in district court.
Lastly, it is significant that a citation’s pleading contents are deemed to be
“reasonabl[y] differen[t]” from the more stringent requirements for other criminal
processes because the citation “will be prepared by an officer on the scene.” N.C.G.S.
ch. 15A, art. 49 official cmt. This approved relaxation of the established criminal
pleading contents for a citation is rooted in the realization that the execution of a law
enforcement officer’s investigative duties and responsibilities must embrace certain
practicalities and realities. Among them is the unsettling, unpredictable, and
unsecure environment in which officers routinely issue citations as they patrol and
monitor the areas that they serve. An officer on his or her beat cannot reasonably be
expected to utilize the same measured standards of thoroughness and exactness in
syntax and grammar that a grand jury applies in its quietude in composing an
indictment or a prosecutor employs in drafting an information. Based upon these and
related considerations, the criminal pleading contents of a citation are designed and
allowed to be more relaxed than those of other criminal charging instruments.
A citation that identifies the charged offense in compliance with N.C.G.S. §
15A-302(c) sufficiently satisfies the legal requirements applicable to the contents of
this category of criminal pleadings and establishes the exercise of the trial court’s
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jurisdiction. Under the facts and circumstances of the present case, the citation at
issue included sufficient criminal pleading contents in order to properly charge
defendant with the misdemeanor offense for which he was found guilty, and the trial
court had subject-matter jurisdiction to enter judgment in this criminal proceeding.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals finding no error in the
trial court’s judgment.
AFFIRMED.
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