In re: D.E.

In Re: D.E., No. 59, September Term, 2025. Opinion by Killough, J. JUVENILE LAW – JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM ACT – MD. CODE ANN., CTS. & JUD. PROC. § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii) – JURISDICTION OF THE JUVENILE COURT – CONTINUATION OF JURISDICTION The Supreme Court of Maryland held that the juvenile court is not divested of jurisdiction over a child between the ages of ten and twelve when, after an adjudicatory hearing, the court finds the child not involved in the alleged crime of violence that brought the case within the court’s jurisdiction but finds the child involved in a lesser offense arising out of the same incident. Under § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii) of the Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, jurisdiction attaches when the State files a delinquency petition alleging that the child committed an act that, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime of violence, or an act arising out of the same incident as such an act. Once jurisdiction attaches, § 3-8A-07(a) of the Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article provides that it continues until the child reaches twenty-one years of age unless terminated sooner. A finding that the child was not involved in the crime of violence is not among the events that terminate jurisdiction. JUVENILE LAW – JURISDICTION OVER OFFENSES ARISING OUT OF THE SAME INCIDENT – MD. CODE ANN., CTS. & JUD. PROC. § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(2) Jurisdiction over an offense arising out of the same incident as an alleged crime of violence is derivative at the filing stage but durable thereafter. A delinquency petition must allege involvement in a crime of violence to anchor the related offense within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction over a child between ten and twelve. That derivation, however, operates only at the moment of filing. Once jurisdiction attaches, jurisdiction obtained under the same- incident clause of § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii) endures on the same terms as jurisdiction obtained under the crime-of-violence clause, and it survives a not-sustained finding, nolle prosequi, or dismissal of the crime of violence through any other means. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – EQUAL PROTECTION – FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT – ARTICLE 24 OF THE MARYLAND DECLARATION OF RIGHTS – JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM ACT – RATIONAL BASIS REVIEW The juvenile delinquency finding of a twelve-year-old child does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Article 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights because, under § 3-8A-07(a), when the State alleges a child’s involvement in a crime of violence and that allegation is supported by probable cause, that child is distinguishable from a child alleged to have involvement only in a misdemeanor. There is a rational relationship between treating juveniles accused of involvement in violent crimes differently than those unaccused and the State’s legitimate interest in treating allegations of violent conduct differently from nonviolent conduct. A twelve-year-old child for whom probable cause existed to allege involvement in an act that would constitute a crime of violence if committed by an adult is not similarly situated to a twelve-year-old child for whom probable cause only existed to allege involvement in a non-violent misdemeanor. Circuit Court for Baltimore City Case No.: 324088004J Argued: June 4, 2026 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF MARYLAND No. 59 September Term, 2025 IN RE: D.E. Fader, C.J., Watts, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, Killough, JJ. Opinion by Killough, J. Filed: July 22, 2026 Pursuant to the Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document is authentic. 2026.07.22 '00'04- 15:32:21 Gregory Hilton, Clerk  Under the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2022 (“JJRA”), the juvenile court has no jurisdiction over a delinquency proceeding against a child under the age of thirteen. But there are exceptions. One exception is when a child, at least ten years old, is alleged to have committed an act that, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime of violence. Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. (“CJP”) § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(1) (2022).1 A second exception—the one at issue in this appeal—applies when a child is alleged to have committed an act arising out of the same incident as such a crime of violence. Id. § 3-8A- 03(a)(1)(ii)(2). A child who falls within either exception comes within the juvenile court’s exclusive original jurisdiction. A juvenile petition charged D.E., then twelve years old, with robbery and four lesser offenses arising from the same incident. Robbery is a crime of violence. Its presence in the petition placed D.E. within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction. After an adjudicatory hearing, a magistrate found D.E. not involved in the robbery but involved in misdemeanor theft. D.E. then moved to dismiss. He argued that the juvenile court lost its jurisdiction the moment it declined to sustain the robbery charge, because a twelve-year-old alleged to have committed only a misdemeanor cannot be brought into juvenile court at all. We granted certiorari before judgment in the Appellate Court of Maryland to consider the following two questions:2 1 We apply the provisions of the Juvenile Causes subtitle in effect at the time of the alleged acts—the provisions as amended by the JJRA, 2022 Md. Laws chs. 41 & 42 (eff. June 1, 2022) and before the effective date of the Juvenile Law Reform Act of 2024, 2024 Md. Laws ch. 735 (eff. Nov. 1, 2024). The 2024 Act’s amendments do not bear on the question presented. 2 In re D.E., 493 Md. 311 (2026).  1. Under the jurisdictional provision of the 2022 JJRA, CJP § 3-8A-03(a) (excluding twelve-year-old children except in certain circumstances), is the juvenile court divested of jurisdiction where the State fails to sustain the enumerated offense that established the basis for jurisdiction? 2. Because twelve-year-old children who are “alleged to have committed” a misdemeanor alone cannot be brought within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction, does a twelve-year-old’s delinquency finding on a misdemeanor violate equal protection? We answer the first question in the negative. Jurisdiction attached when the State filed the delinquency petition, and nothing in the Juvenile Causes subtitle divested the court of that authority. The statutory provision governing how a juvenile court acquires jurisdiction is entirely distinct from the provision dictating how long that jurisdiction lasts. D.E. asks us to read the former as if it controlled the latter. Because the plain text does not support that reading, we decline to adopt it. Regarding the second question, D.E.’s equal protection claim fails on the merits because he did not satisfy his burden of proving unequal protection under the law or selective enforcement of the law. Accordingly, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND A. The Incident and the Adjudication On the evening of February 13, 2024, Kelly Drnec stopped at a Royal Farms store on Light Street in Baltimore City on her way home from an event. She carried a large black purse holding a laptop, a cell phone, credit cards, and a smaller green and white purse. Several teenagers were in and around the store. Drnec noticed one of them, a masked youth later identified as D.E., following her. When she left the store, D.E. and 2 others approached her. D.E. took the small purse from her and took the larger purse, which Drnec had dropped, from the ground. During the encounter, someone threw liquid on her. The State filed a delinquency petition charging D.E. with five counts arising from the incident: robbery; conspiracy to commit robbery; second-degree assault; theft of property valued at $1,500 or more; and theft of property valued between $100 and $1,500. Robbery is a crime of violence. Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law § 14-101(a)(9). Because D.E. was twelve, the robbery allegation is what brought his case within the juvenile court’s jurisdiction under CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii). At the adjudicatory hearing, the contested question was one of sequence. The magistrate concluded D.E.’s actions constituted a “taking.” The magistrate ruled that if the liquid was thrown before the taking, the force element of robbery would be met. If the liquid was thrown after the taking, the offense was theft. The theft at issue—of property valued between $100 and $1,500—is a misdemeanor. Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law § 7- 104(g)(2). The magistrate reserved her ruling to study Drnec’s testimony, which she found internally inconsistent on the timing. Several weeks later, she returned with her findings. She found D.E. involved in misdemeanor theft, reasoning that taking both purses and running showed an intent to permanently deprive. On the robbery count, she found that the State had not proved force or intimidation beyond a reasonable doubt. She found D.E. was not involved on the remaining counts: the conspiracy count failed for want of evidence of an agreement, the assault count failed because another person threw the liquid, and the felony theft count failed, because the State did not prove the property’s value exceeded $1,500. 3  The magistrate precisely framed the reserved question: “Was the liquid thrown at her and then the items taken from her? In which case, you’ve got an assault and a robbery. Was the liquid thrown at her after her items were taken? In which case you have a theft.” On the theft, she found the intent to permanently deprive established because D.E. “took the [smaller] purse and took the black purse and ran off with both.” B. The Motion to Dismiss, Disposition, and Exceptions After the magistrate’s ruling, D.E. moved to dismiss the sustained misdemeanor theft count for lack of jurisdiction. He argued that once the court declined to sustain the robbery—the only jurisdiction-qualifying offense in the petition—the court lost jurisdiction over him and could not proceed to disposition. The magistrate denied the motion, explaining that under In re J.B., 261 Md. App. 274 (2024), jurisdiction attached at the filing of the petition and continued thereafter. The magistrate found D.E.’s case indistinguishable from In re J.B. The issue of jurisdiction, she explained, “really relates to whether or not there was a crime of violence charged,” and the court is not divested “simply because misdemeanors were sustained, but not the underlying [crime of violence].” The juvenile court proceeded to disposition. At disposition, D.E. asked the magistrate to find him not delinquent on the grounds that he did not need juvenile services. The court declined, finding D.E. delinquent and intervention appropriate for purposes of behavior modification. The magistrate placed D.E. on six months’ probation with various 4 conditions.3 D.E. filed exceptions to the magistrate’s findings and recommendations and renewed his motion to dismiss. A judge of the juvenile court heard the exceptions and denied them. The court explained that the General Assembly “knows the difference between allegations and sustained charges[,]” and that the statute’s jurisdictional test “rests on the charges, not the ultimate conclusion.” D.E. noted an appeal to the Appellate Court of Maryland. Before that court heard argument, however, D.E. petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, which we granted. In re D.E., 493 Md. 311 (2026). II. STANDARD OF REVIEW Whether the juvenile court has jurisdiction in a juvenile matter is a question of statutory interpretation, which we review de novo. In re M.P., 487 Md. 53, 84 (2024). We look to a statute’s plain language to determine what the General Assembly intended. Cutchember v. State, 493 Md. 187, 201–02 (2026). If the words the General Assembly chose are clear and consistent with the statute’s purpose, our inquiry ends. Breitenbach v. 3 D.E.’s probation expired by operation of law on June 19, 2025, effectively concluding the underlying dispute. While this appeal may “ostensibly appear moot,” D.L. v. Sheppard Pratt Health Sys., Inc., 465 Md. 339, 352 (2019), courts may review a moot controversy if collateral consequences flow from the disposition, id., or if the issue merits discretionary review, see, e.g., In re S.F., 477 Md. 296, 318–23 (2022). Because neither party raised nor briefed the issue, we need not definitively resolve whether the expiration of probation renders this appeal moot. Even assuming that the matter is technically moot, we exercise our discretion to address the questions presented. As in S.F., the statutory interpretation issues raised here “will likely reoccur, involve the same parties within the juvenile justice system . . ., likely evade judicial review, and concern[] a matter of public interest[.]” Id. at 319. 5 N.B. Handy Co., 366 Md. 467, 473 (2001). We do not insert into a statute exceptions or limitations the Legislature left out, see Nesbit v. Gov’t Emps. Ins. Co., 382 Md. 65, 75 (2004), and we do not construct an element of a statute from the absence of language, Haile v. State, 431 Md. 448, 467 (2013). III. DISCUSSION Juvenile delinquency proceedings are civil in nature. In re Anthony R., 362 Md. 51, 69 (2000). They are governed by the Juvenile Causes subtitle, whose stated purposes include providing “for the care, protection, and wholesome mental and physical development of children” and “a program of treatment, training, and rehabilitation consistent with the child’s best interests and the protection of the public interest.” CJP § 3- 8A-02(a)(4). And, importantly, a delinquency adjudication is not a criminal conviction. In re Victor B., 336 Md. 85, 93 (1994). The juvenile court is a court of limited jurisdiction; it exercises only the authority a statute confers. Smith v. State, 399 Md. 565, 578 (2007). When the State files a delinquency petition, the court obtains “exclusive original jurisdiction” over the action. Parojinog v. State, 282 Md. 256, 260 (1978). The age that controls the determination of jurisdiction is the child’s age when the alleged act was committed. CJP § 3-8A-05. Before 2022, the juvenile court’s jurisdiction reached any “child who is alleged to be delinquent,” without regard to age. CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1) (2020 Repl. Vol., 2021 Supp.). The 2022 JJRA changed that. It imposed age-based minimums on the juvenile court’s authority. As we explained in In re M.P., the JJRA “removed from the juvenile courts’ 6 jurisdiction juvenile delinquency proceedings against children under 13 years of age, with the exception of those aged 10 to 12 years old charged with committing an act that would be considered a crime of violence if committed by an adult.” 487 Md. at 59. The statute, CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1), provides that the juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction over a child: (i) Who is at least 13 years old alleged to be delinquent; or (ii) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this section, who is at least 10 years old alleged to have committed an act: 1. That, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime of violence, as defined in § 14-101 of the Criminal Law Article; or 2. Arising out of the same incident as an act listed in item 1 of this item[.] A companion provision states the rule in the negative: the juvenile court “does not have jurisdiction over[,]” “[e]xcept as provided in subsection (a)(1)(ii) of this section, a delinquency proceeding against a child who is under the age of 13 years.” CJP § 3-8A- 03(d)(7). The JJRA left untouched the provision that governs how long jurisdiction lasts once it is obtained. That provision reads: “If the court obtains jurisdiction over a child under this subtitle, that jurisdiction continues until that person reaches 21 years of age unless terminated sooner.” Id. § 3-8A-07(a). The parties read these provisions differently. The State reads CJP § 3-8A- 03(a)(1)(ii) to mean that if a delinquency petition alleges a qualifying crime of violence and a non-qualifying offense arising out of the same incident, the court’s jurisdiction over both attaches at the time of filing and is not lost if the qualifying offense is later not sustained or otherwise dismissed. D.E. reads the same provision to make continued 7 jurisdiction contingent on the qualifying offense remaining viable. On his reading, if the qualifying offense disappears—whether by nolle prosequi, a not-sustained finding, or any other route—the court loses jurisdiction over every non-qualifying offense with it. Based on our reading of the plain language of the statute, we agree with the State. A. The Statute Assigns Two Jobs to Two Provisions This case turns on a distinction the parties tend to blur. Two provisions are at work, and they do different jobs. Section 3-8A-03 tells the juvenile court how it obtains jurisdiction. For a child ten to twelve years old, the answer is that jurisdiction is determined at the charging stage: the petition must allege a crime of violence or an act arising from the same incident as a crime of violence. Subsection 3-8A-07(a) tells the court how long that jurisdiction lasts once the court has obtained it. The answer is until the child turns twenty-one, “unless terminated sooner.” CJP § 3-8A-07(a). D.E.’s argument depends on collapsing those two jobs into one. He reads § 3-8A- 03(a)(1)(ii) as not only conferring jurisdiction at the outset but also as imposing a condition that must persist at every subsequent stage of the proceeding. That provision establishes jurisdiction over a child based on two categories of alleged conduct. The first encompasses an act that, if committed by an adult, would constitute a crime of violence (the “crime-of- violence clause”). CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(1). The second covers an act arising out of the same incident as the alleged crime of violence (the “same-incident clause”). Id. § 3-8A- 03(a)(1)(ii)(2). The misdemeanor theft charge, D.E. contends, could only fall within the juvenile court’s purview via the same-incident clause. Because that clause operates purely 8 by reference to a companion crime of violence, he argues that when the crime-of-violence anchor disappears, jurisdiction over the derivative same-incident charge dissolves with it. There are three potential interpretations of how the same-incident clause interacts with the crime-of-violence clause. The first treats the same-incident clause as a co-equal grant of jurisdiction. Under this view, the two clauses independently delineate two categories of qualifying conduct; a petition alleging either act successfully invokes the court’s jurisdiction, which then persists under § 3-8A-07(a). The second reading treats the same-incident clause as derivative but durable. It relies on the crime-of-violence allegation to establish jurisdiction at the moment of filing—as an act qualifies only by virtue of its connection to a concurrent crime-of-violence charge—but once that jurisdiction attaches, it endures on equal footing with the primary charge. The third reading, pressed by D.E., treats the same-incident clause as derivative and contingent. Under this interpretation, the clause possesses no independent legal existence; if the anchoring charge fails at any point, the dependent charge must fail as well. Consequently, the moment the robbery allegation against the twelve-year-old is dismissed, the jurisdictional foundation dissolves, requiring the immediate dismissal of the non-violent charges. While this final reading possesses a certain structural symmetry, it finds no anchor in the plain language of the statute and, as detailed below, yields consequences the General Assembly could not have intended. We need not definitively choose between the first two interpretations because the result is identical under either framework: jurisdiction that attaches at filing continues under § 3-8A-07(a) until terminated by an event explicitly enumerated within the subtitle. A “not-sustained” finding on the anchoring offense is not a statutorily authorized 9 mechanism for termination. That said, characterizing the clause as derivative but durable provides the most faithful account of the statutory text; the same-incident clause requires a crime-of-violence reference to activate, but that structural dependence is fully satisfied at the moment of filing. What we reject, and all we need to reject to resolve this appeal, is the third reading: that the same-incident clause is not only derivative of but also contingent upon the crime-of-violence clause, such that jurisdiction is dissolved the moment the anchor offense is not sustained. B. Companion Jurisdiction Is Derivative at Filing but Durable Thereafter The same-incident clause is indeed derivative in a narrow sense. To bring a related, nonviolent charge against a twelve-year-old into juvenile court, the petition must contain a crime-of-violence allegation to anchor it. CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(1). Without that anchor, the same-incident clause in CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(2) has nothing to attach to, and jurisdiction over the nonviolent charge never arises. That much D.E. has right. But the derivation operates exclusively at the filing stage. The clause asks whether the act, as alleged, arose from the same incident as an alleged crime of violence. Id. § 3-8A- 03(a)(1)(ii)(2). At the time of filing, that condition is either satisfied, or it is not. Nothing in the clause makes the grant contingent on the anchor’s survival through adjudication. It uses the same operative phrase as the crime-of-violence clause—“alleged to have committed”—and for the same reason. That phrase, moreover, is not repeated in each clause. It appears once, in the subsection that introduces both: The court has jurisdiction over a child “alleged to have committed an act” that is either a crime of violence or an act arising out of the same incident. Id. § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii). A single “alleged to have 10 committed” governs both clauses at once, so the two cannot be read to operate on different timelines—whatever the phrase means for one, it means for the other. Both are charging- stage conditions. Neither is a running one, conditioned upon the ultimate disposition of the charges. Cf. Harris v. State, 94 Md. App. 266, 277 (1992) (“In many circumstances, once a court lawfully acquires jurisdiction over a case, that jurisdiction may continue despite subsequent events, even though those events would have prevented jurisdiction from attaching in the first place.”). Once jurisdiction attaches, the two clauses operate identically. They endure because CJP § 3-8A-07(a) mandates it: “that jurisdiction continues until that person reaches 21 years of age unless terminated sooner.” The statute draws no distinction between jurisdiction obtained through the crime-of-violence clause and jurisdiction obtained through the same-incident clause. Both are jurisdictional under the statute, and both continue on equal terms. D.E.’s error is to treat a filing-stage threshold determination as an ongoing condition. The statute imposes no such requirement, and we decline to read one into it.4 A further feature of the statutory language strikes at the root of D.E.’s theory. Both provisions speak to jurisdiction over the child—not jurisdiction over the charge. Subsection 3-8A-03(a) confers “exclusive original jurisdiction over” “[a] child” who is alleged to have committed a qualifying act. Similarly, § 3-8A-07(a) provides that “[i]f the 4 We address only the case before us in which a single respondent was charged with both a crime of violence and a related offense arising from the same incident. We have no occasion to consider, and express no view on, how CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(2) applies to other configurations of respondents or charges. 11 court obtains jurisdiction over a child,” that “jurisdiction continues” until the child turns twenty-one. The object of the statutory grant, and of its continuation, is the individual respondent. D.E.’s theory treats jurisdiction as though it attached to individual counts, dissolving piecemeal as those counts are resolved one by one. The statutory architecture is not structured in this manner. Once the petition’s threshold allegations bring the child within the court’s purview, the court possesses jurisdiction over the child, and § 3-8A-07(a) maintains that authority irrespective of the ultimate disposition of any single count. As the Appellate Court explained in In re J.B., “if the General Assembly wanted to circumscribe the juvenile court’s jurisdiction in circumstances like those presented in this case, it could have enacted a . . . statutory mechanism to allow juveniles to seek dismissal of charges that would not otherwise be within the court’s original jurisdiction.” 261 Md. App. at 292. But it did not, “and we see nothing in the legislative history of § 3-8A-03 that would support appellant’s interpretation of the statute.” Id. In fact, the General Assembly enacted a subtitle specifically addressing when the juvenile court’s jurisdiction is terminated. D.E.’s proposed avenue for jurisdiction termination is not one that is mentioned in that subtitle. Section 3-8A-07—titled “Continuation or cessation of jurisdiction”—supplies the rule: once obtained, jurisdiction “continues until that person reaches 21 years of age unless terminated sooner.” The subtitle tells us how jurisdiction may be terminated sooner. It may be waived to the criminal court. CJP § 3-8A-06. It ends when the child ages out. It ends in other circumstances the General Assembly has specified. A not-sustained finding on the offense that anchored jurisdiction is not on the list. D.E. asks us to add it. We 12 decline to “judicially insert language to impose exceptions, limitations or restrictions not set forth by the legislature.” Langston v. Langston, 366 Md. 490, 515 (2001); see also Comptroller of Treasury v. Blanton, 390 Md. 528, 537 (2006) (“Maryland has long accepted the doctrine of expressio (or inclusio) unius est exclusio alterius, or the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another.” (citation omitted)). D.E. responds that not every termination of juvenile jurisdiction is governed by an express provision. He is right about that, but that proposition does not yield the conclusion he seeks. When a court finds a child not involved on every count, it closes the case, and no statute separately governs the act of closing. But that closing is not a divestiture of jurisdiction; it is the natural exhaustion of the matter. The court keeps the power to enter its not-involved findings and end the case—it simply has nothing left to adjudicate. A case in which one count has been sustained and disposition remains is different in kind: there, something is left to decide, and the power to decide it is the very jurisdiction D.E. says has vanished. But that is not this case. This was a split result. The magistrate sustained one count and declined another. After a split result, a live controversy persists: disposition on the count that was sustained. The juvenile court did not strip itself of authority by resolving the robbery in D.E.’s favor. We hold that the juvenile court’s authority to proceed to disposition on the misdemeanor theft endures until terminated under one of the conditions set forth in CJP § 3-8A-07(a). 13  C. Four Textual Points Confirm the Reading Four features of the text of “Subtitle 8a—Juvenile Causes—Children Other Than Cinas and Adults” confirm that jurisdiction, once obtained, survived the not-sustained finding on the robbery. First, the subtitle already contains express termination mechanisms. Jurisdiction may be waived to the criminal court. CJP § 3-8A-06. It ends when the respondent turns twenty-one. Id. § 3-8A-07(a). A not-sustained finding on the anchor offense is not among the mechanisms the General Assembly wrote. The omission is not an invitation to the courts; it is a decision by the Legislature. Second, D.E.’s construction of “alleged to have committed” as a continuous, present-tense condition yields an untenable result. Consider the status of a case at the close of an adjudicatory hearing: the threshold allegations have been resolved, and the child is no longer merely “alleged” to have committed an offense—the factfinder has answered that question one way or the other. If “alleged to have committed” imposed a condition that must be continuously satisfied throughout the litigation, then jurisdiction would evaporate at the close of every adjudication, including those that fully sustain the crime- of-violence charge. On that logic, no juvenile court could ever proceed to the dispositional stage because the allegations would cease to be allegations the moment they are proven. Such an interpretation yields an absurd result, and it is a foundational canon of statutory construction that we avoid interpretations that are illogical, unreasonable, or inconsistent with common sense. See Blandon v. State, 304 Md. 316, 319 (1985). D.E. counters that a sustained finding preserves jurisdiction while only a not-sustained finding 14 destroys it, meaning disposition is never imperiled when the crime of violence is proved. The statutory text forecloses this asymmetrical reading. The statute explicitly anchors jurisdiction to what the child is “alleged to have committed,” not to what the child is ultimately found to have done; it speaks exclusively of allegations, never of findings. If the live status of the allegation controlled, a sustained finding would alter that status as definitively as a not-sustained one—converting “alleged” into “proved”—and the statute would have to account for that mutation. It does not. Because jurisdiction is measured by the allegation rather than the adjudicatory result, the result cannot bear on jurisdiction in either direction. The sensible reading is the ordinary one: “alleged to have committed” describes the posture of the case at the moment jurisdiction is invoked, when the petition is filed. As the juvenile court aptly observed, the General Assembly “knows the difference between allegations and sustained charges,” and it tied jurisdiction to the former. Third, D.E.’s interpretation would render the same-incident clause a nullity, violating the cardinal rule that statutes must be construed so that no part is rendered surplusage or meaningless. See Gillespie v. State, 370 Md. 219, 222 (2002). The same- incident clause exists to keep a single factual episode consolidated, allowing the juvenile court to adjudicate related, nonviolent conduct alongside the violent conduct from which it arose. But if jurisdiction under the same-incident clause terminates whenever the crime of violence is not sustained, the clause could never operate past the adjudicatory stage. It would fail to preserve the court’s authority when the State, for its own reasons, dismisses or enters a nolle prosequi as to the anchor charge, just as it would fail to survive a not- sustained finding. It would endure only when the anchoring charge is fully sustained—a 15 scenario in which the court already possesses independent jurisdiction over the respondent through the crime-of-violence clause itself. Under D.E.’s reading, the same-incident clause would be surplusage in every case in which its application actually matters. The General Assembly enacted the same-incident clause to serve a distinct procedural purpose; our durable reading permits it to do so. See In re J.B., 261 Md. App. at 289; cf. Gray v. State, 6 Md. App. 677, 684 (1969) (holding that a jury’s acquittal of a sixteen-year-old on an anchoring murder charge did not strip the circuit court of jurisdiction over a sustained manslaughter count). Fourth, the statute joins the two clauses with the disjunctive “or,” not the conjunctive “and.” CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii). The choice of words matters. The provision grants jurisdiction over a child alleged to have committed an act of either kind. It does not condition jurisdiction over a same-incident-clause act charge on the continued vitality of a crime-of-violence charge; it identifies two categories of qualifying acts and treats an allegation of either as sufficient. The disjunctive does more than offer two ways in. It places the clauses on equal footing as sufficient conditions for jurisdiction, and § 3-8A- 07(a) then continues the jurisdiction so obtained without ranking the clause that supplied it. Nothing marks the same-incident clause as subordinate to the crime-of-violence clause once jurisdiction has attached. D.E.’s argument—that the same-incident clause rises and falls with the crime-of-violence clause at every stage of the proceeding—asks the disjunctive to function as a conjunctive. The text reads otherwise. 16  D. In re J.B. Was Correctly Decided, and We Adopt Its Reasoning The Appellate Court has previously answered the same question presented in this case, in all but procedural detail, in In re J.B. There, a twelve-year-old was charged with first-degree assault, which is a crime of violence, and second-degree assault, which is not. 261 Md. App. at 278. The two charges arose from the same incident. Id. Under a plea agreement, J.B. admitted involvement in the second-degree assault, and the State nol prossed the first-degree assault. Id. J.B. then moved to dismiss, arguing that the nol pros of the anchor charge stripped the court of jurisdiction over the remaining count. Id. at 281. The juvenile court denied the motion, and the Appellate Court affirmed. Id. at 281–82, 289. The Appellate Court’s reasoning in In re J.B. tracks the analysis we adopt today. The court explained that CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(1) “granted the juvenile court exclusive original jurisdiction” over the crime of violence, and that CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1)(ii)(2) “provided the juvenile court with jurisdiction to adjudicate” the lesser offense “because that alleged act arose ‘out of the same incident’” as the qualifying offense. Id. at 289. The court held that “the plain language of CJP § 3-8A-03(a)(1) is clear and unambiguous,” and that jurisdiction continued after the anchor charge left the case. Id. at 289–90. If the General Assembly had wanted the juvenile court to lose jurisdiction in those circumstances, it could have provided a statutory mechanism for that loss. Id. at 292. It “chose not to do so[,]” and the Appellate Court saw “nothing in the legislative history of § 3-8A-03” supporting the contrary reading. Id. 17  The Appellate Court grounded that holding in settled law. It invoked the principle that “once a court lawfully acquires jurisdiction over the person and the subject matter of the litigation, subsequent events will not ordinarily deprive the court of its jurisdiction[.]” Id. at 286 (quoting Gray, 6 Md. App. at 682). And it relied on the rule that a court “will exercise its jurisdiction even when the charge which served as the basis for the assertion of jurisdiction is later nolle prossed or eliminated in some other manner.” Id. at 289 (quoting Harris, 94 Md. App. at 277) (italics in original). These principles do not turn on the specific mechanism by which the anchoring charge is resolved. They apply with equal force whether that charge is dismissed via nolle prosequi, as in In re J.B., or terminated by a “not-sustained” finding, as is the case here. Accordingly, we adopt the sound reasoning of the Appellate Court’s opinion in In re J.B. and hold that its principles govern the present dispute. D.E. seeks to confine In re J.B. to the context of a plea agreement, but we find no reason to limit In re J.B. to its facts. Indeed, the In re J.B. court explicitly declined to circumscribe its holding in such a manner. See id. at 292. It held that jurisdiction continued because the surviving charge arose from the same incident as the one that brought the case within the court’s purview “in the first instance.” Id. Moreover, the court anticipated the very argument D.E. presses here, observing that it saw “nothing in Maryland law” to support the contention that a juvenile court loses jurisdiction “if the child is not found ‘involved’ as to a crime of violence.” Id. at 289 n.6. That footnote describes the exact scenario presented in this appeal. 18  The procedural difference D.E. presses—a nol pros in In re J.B., and a not-sustained finding here—makes no difference. Jurisdiction turns on the statute, not on the route by which the anchor charge is resolved. There is no textual basis to treat the two differently, and we treat them the same. Our holding governs both. E. In re M.P. Does Not Undermine In re J.B. D.E.’s reliance on our decision in In re M.P. is misplaced. He reads In re M.P. to stand for the broad proposition that juvenile jurisdiction never permanently vests and must be reassessed whenever judicial power is exercised. That reading stretches our holding in that case beyond recognition. In re M.P. construed a different provision—subsection (d)(7), the JJRA’s affirmative jurisdiction-stripping rule. 487 Md. at 59. M.P. was twelve when he was charged with motor vehicle theft and related offenses. Id. at 59–60. He was not charged with any crime of violence, or with any act arising out of one. See id. at 60 n.1. The juvenile court initially had jurisdiction over M.P. because the JJRA had not yet been enacted when the crime