In Re Jeffrey T.

Appellant Jeffrey T., a former ward of the juvenile court, moved under Welfare and Institutions Code section 781 to seal the juvenile records in this case relating to an admitted charge of battery with serious bodily injury (the battery offense). The juvenile court denied the motion on the ground that section 781 precluded sealing a person’s juvenile records in any case where the person had been found to have committed an offense listed in section 707, subdivision (b), after attaining 14 years of age. Here, the juvenile court found after trial that appellant committed, in addition to battery, assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury with enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury (the assault offense), a section 707, subdivision (b) offense.

On appeal, appellant claims the juvenile court erred in denying his motion. He acknowledges the records in this case relating to the assault offense are not sealable under section 781. But he contends those relating to the battery offense are sealable because—although joined in the same petition with the assault charge—it stemmed from unrelated events on a different date, in a different location, and with a…