## Facts

- After a fight involving Cristian A.’s younger brother outside a McDonald’s in Silver Spring, Maryland, Cristian ran toward officers arresting his brother, yelling for them to leave him alone.
- Officers testified Cristian resisted, got up after being taken to the ground, assumed a fighting stance, and challenged officers before being subdued with a Taser and arrested (Oct. 26, 2012).
- The State filed a juvenile complaint with the Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) 20 days after the incident, exceeding a statutory 15-day filing deadline by five days (Nov. 15, 2012).
- A DJS intake officer reviewed the complaint and authorized filing a delinquency petition without conducting an intake interview with Cristian.
- On the same day as the complaint filing, Cristian was arrested in an unrelated first-degree assault case; those charges were later dismissed.
- In juvenile court, Cristian moved to dismiss, arguing the late complaint violated the statute and caused actual prejudice by depriving him of an intake interview that could have led the intake officer to decline authorizing a petition.
- The juvenile court denied the motion and adjudicated Cristian involved (delinquent) on offenses including second-degree assault and resisting/interfering with arrest.
- Cristian appealed from the denial of dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether filing a juvenile complaint after the statutory 15-day deadline requires dismissal of the delinquency proceeding.
2. Whether the juvenile must show actual prejudice from the delay, and whether Cristian proved such prejudice based on the absence of an intake interview.

## Decision

- The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland affirmed the juvenile court.
- The court held the five-day late filing did not require dismissal absent a showing of actual prejudice caused by the delay.
- The court concluded Cristian did not establish actual prejudice because his claim that a timely filing would have produced an intake interview and a different intake decision was speculative.
- The court accepted that the intake officer properly exercised statutory authority to authorize a delinquency petition even without an interview.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory time limits for filing juvenile complaints are generally treated as directory rather than automatically jurisdictional; noncompliance does not mandate dismissal by itself.
- Dismissal for a late juvenile complaint requires the juvenile to prove actual prejudice caused by the delay.
- The juvenile bears the burden to show concrete harm, not merely delay or a hypothetical lost opportunity.
- An intake interview is not an absolute prerequisite to an intake officer’s authorization of a formal delinquency petition when the statutory intake process otherwise permits authorization.

## Conclusion

A juvenile delinquency case is not dismissed solely because the State files the complaint after the statutory deadline; the juvenile must prove the delay caused actual prejudice, and speculative assertions about a foregone intake interview are insufficient.


In re Cristian A., 98 A.3d 1064 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2014)