The Maryland Senate, without debate, voted to trim the number of offenses that automatically land a juvenile in adult court.
The vote followed nearly an hour of debate Wednesday, during which Republicans tried unsuccessfully to add amendments they said would restore “accountability” for teen offenders, particularly repeat offenders.
Friday’s 34-12 vote on Senate Bill 323 fell mostly along party lines, with co-sponsor Sen. Chris West (R-Baltimore and Carroll) as the only Republican to vote for the bill and Sen. Carl Jackson (D-Baltimore County) the only Democrat to vote against it.
The bill now heads to the House, which has its own version of the bill, but which has been waiting to see the Senate bill before taking action.
Friday’s vote puts the General Assembly one step closer to what one advocate calls one of “the most consequential youth justice reform bills in the state’s history,” he said. Supporters have been working for more than a decade to pass the bill, and Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), the bill’s sponsor, took time to praise former Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City), who fought for years to change the law.
“It’s amazing when you’re persistent, you make your case. Eventually, common sense prevails, and that’s exactly what happened here,” said Smith, chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. “I’m really proud of the legislation and it took a lot of people a long time to get it done.”
The bill would raise the age when a juvenile could be tried as an adult for most crimes from age 14 to age 16, although 14- and 15-year-olds would still head directly to adult court for charges like first-degree murder or rape, one of several compromises in the bill.
But 16-year-olds would be sent to juvenile court for certain crimes, such as first-degree assault and some firearms offenses. The final version of the bill also includes language from another measure, sponsored by Sen. Sara Love (D-Montgomery), that would prohibit youth charged as adults from being “detained or confined” in an adult prison. The only exception would be if no “secure juvenile detention area” is immediately available, in which case a youth could be held for processing in an adult jail, but for no more than six hours.
Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland), who voted last week to move the bill out of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, reversed his vote on the floor Friday, saying he could not support “the overall tenets” of the bill.
McKay said he was swayed, in part, by Wednesday’s debate and remarks from Sen. William G. Folden (R-Frederick), the only legislator to vote against the bill in committee. Folden, a retired law enforcement officer, argued that crimes like first-degree assault and some firearms offenses are often just shy of homicide, and should automatically move a 16-year-old from juvenile court to adult court.
“The debate that happened on the floor convinced me that I was just not ready to move forward with it,” McKay said.
McKay said he was also concerned by another compromise in the bill that would let a judge decide more quickly where a case belongs. The bill would also let a county state’s attorney argue that a juvenile case should revert to adult court.
Despite concerns with the bill overall, the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center, headquartered said there’s “a little bit of protection” in the bill when it comes to the state Department of Juvenile Services (DJS). The bill would require a DJS intake officer to “authorize detention” of a suspect who is 16 or older if they are accused of violating certain firearm offenses in this statute, or committing “a crime of violence” listed in this statute.
The crime victims’ center had submitted written testimony opposing the overall bill. Laura Corbett Wilt, senior supervising attorney in the center’s Baltimore office, said Friday that victims of serious or violent offenses “feel empathy for the juveniles and their situations,” but are appalled by the lack of enforcement power within juvenile courts. In addition, she said there aren’t enough programs within DJS, and the agency isn’t equipped to handle serious and violent repeat offenders.
“Multiple people have been murdered by youth who are released on ankle monitors because of the lack of programming,” Wilt said. “We need to do better for our communities. We need better juvenile court laws before we are adding any crimes to juvenile court.”
But James L. Dold, the CEO and founder of Human Rights for Kids in Washington, D.C., hailed Friday’s vote, saying in a statement that Maryland’s bill would ensure the state would comply under federal law.
“We stand on the precipice of one of the most consequential youth justice reform bills in the state’s history,” he said.