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In the Interest of D. T.

The juvenile admitted to being a lookout while tow of his friends attacked and robbed a woman.

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Following a bench trial in juvenile court, D. T. appeals an adjudication of delinquency, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and arguing that because he was promised to be taken home if he spoke to police, the juvenile court erred in admitting his statements to police as voluntary and as not induced by a hope of benefit. We hold that the evidence sufficed to sustain the adjudication in that the accomplice’s testimony identifying D. T. as a perpetrator was corroborated by D. T.’s own statements to police. Because the alleged benefit promised to D. T. being taken home was collateral to the charges against him, such does not constitute a benefit forbidden by law, and therefore the trial court properly admitted D. T.’s statements to police. Accordingly, we affirm. 1. When reviewing the sufficiency of evidence supporting a juvenile court’s adjudication, we apply the same standard of review used in criminal cases. See In the Interest of J. A. F. 1 We construe the evidence in favor of the court’s adjudication and determine if a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile committed the acts charged. Id.

So construed, the evidence shows that late one evening, a woman arrived home from work and, carrying her pocketbook, exited her car at the end of her driveway near the gate to her backyard. As she approached the gate to feed her cat, she was struck from behind and became disoriented. She came to her senses in the grass of her front yard, bleeding, bruised, and without her pocketbook. Abrasions on her arms and legs were consistent with being dragged along the driveway and ground. Shortly thereafter, D. T. a minor and two other young males were picked up by a female friend on a street near the crime scene; the friend saw them trying to bury a gun after they arrived home.

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