M.N. v. Morgan Hill Unified School District

The school’s principal recommended that M.N., a seventh grader, be expelled, based upon allegations that M.N. had committed sexual assault or sexual battery upon a 13-year-old female student on multiple occasions while the two rode a school bus. The district's administrative panel conducted a hearing and recommended expulsion, finding that M.N. had committed or attempted to commit sexual assault or committed sexual battery, and also committed sexual harassment. Unsuccessful with the District’s Governing Board and the Santa Clara County Board of Education, M.N. filed sought mandamus relief. The superior court concluded there was substantial evidence to support the finding that M.N. had committed sexual battery so that the District was required by statute to expel him for one year. The court remanded for consideration of whether the evidence justified the exercise of statutory discretion to suspend expulsion. M.N. argued that the sexual battery finding was unsupported by any competent evidence of the element of specific intent, i.e., that M.N.’s unwanted touching was “for the specific purpose of sexual arousal, sexual gratification, or sexual abuse” (Pen. Code, 243.4(e)(1)) and that evidence of such specific intent was entirely hearsay. The court of appeal affirmed, concluding that there was substantial evidence—including competent, admissible, nonhearsay evidence—to support the finding of sexual battery. View "M.N. v. Morgan Hill Unified School District" on Justia Law