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Advocates urge action on state law
Teens should not face adult court, they say
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Published: February 28, 2008
Child advocates speaking at a community forum here yesterday said they want to change state law so 16- and 17-year-olds won't automatically be prosecuted as adults. Instead, advocates said, a judge should decide in each case if a teenager should be tried as an adult.
North Carolina is one of just three states in the U.S. that try teens who are 16 and 17 as adults when they are charged with a crime, advocates said. New York and Connecticut are the other two.
State law assumes that teens have the ability to think and reason as adults do, said Sorien Schmidt, the senior vice president of Action for Children North Carolina.
But at the forum here yesterday, Schmidt cited studies that show that teenagers lack the ability to make sound decisions by thinking through consequences and have difficulty controlling impulses--reasons, she said, that most at-risk and court-involved youth should be tried in the juvenile-court system.
"The reality is that research shows that they are not adults, and their brains have not developed as an adult brain," Schmidt said. "For a lot of these kids, there is an opportunity to turn their lives around."
The court system will still find that some juveniles should be tried as adults, she said, but a judge should make that decision.
Action for Children N.C. and Forsyth Futures sponsored the forum yesterday to promote trying 16- and-17-year olds in the juvenilejustice system.
More than 60 court counselors, health-department officials and others who work with youth showed up for the discussion.
Sen. Linda Garrou, D-Forsyth, and Eric Zogry also spoke during the forum.
Garrou, who is serving her fifth term in the N.C. Senate, oversees the Senate's work on the state budget each year. Garrou said that Gov. Mike Easely has requested additional money for the Governor's Crime Commission to study the issue of trying teens as adults.
Zogry, a juvenile defender for the state, said that now, about 10 years after juvenile-justice reform, is probably a good time to re-evaluate the system.
"There is no indication by any studies that raising the age … will create safety issues for the community," Zogry said.
In fact, he said, the juvenile-court system has rules not available in adult court that could keep juveniles in line. For example, he said, in the juvenile system there is no right to bond. The only way that juveniles are released is by a judge's permission, and then they have to be released into the custody of an adult.
"Juvenile court is not a slap on the wrist," Zogry said. "It's a relevant part of our court system."
Rep. Alice Bordsen introduced legislation in March 2007 to raise the juvenile jurisdiction to age 18.
In 2004 in North Carolina, more minors were prosecuted in the adult-court system than in the juvenile system, with about 33,000 prosecuted in adult court and about 25,000 prosecuted in juvenile court, Schmidt said.
Schmidt said that, as state law is written now, N.C. is lagging behind in the juvenile-justice system.
Connecticut, one of the other two states that still prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds as adults, has passed a law that will end the practice by 2010, she said.
■ Lisa Boone-Wood can be reached at 727-7232 or at lboone-wood@wsjournal.com.
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