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Criminal charges follow teens for life

News-Topic - 6/17/2018

June 17--The teenager sat alone in the back of the courtroom in Caldwell Superior Court, face blank, surrounded by dozens of adults accused of crimes -- crimes like drug trafficking, larceny and assault. When a prosecutor called his name, he said, speaking clearly in a deep voice, that he was present.

His case was rescheduled, and he walked quickly out and down the courthouse stairs.

The 17-year-old has been charged with sexual battery. It's a misdemeanor but also a sex crime. He is accused of forcing a then-15-year-old girl to touch his crotch outside his pants on April 11, 2017. Because he was 16 at the time he was charged, he was charged as an adult.

But last year, North Carolina legislators decided to change the law. Starting in December 2019, 16- and 17-year-olds like this teenager who are accused of misdemeanors and low-level, non-violent felonies, such as larcenies or break-ins, will not automatically be charged as adults with crimes, but the change comes too late for teenagers already tangled in the adult criminal justice system.

Alone with his lawyer in Caldwell District Court in early January because his mother had to take a grandchild to a doctor's appointment, he entered what is called an Alford plea, in which a defendant maintains his innocence but agrees to plead because the state may have enough evidence to convict him. The end result, though, is still a conviction.

He had been sitting in court for hours and wanted his case to be finished, his mother later said in an interview, and while his lawyer advised him not to plead guilty, he didn't fully understand the ramifications of his decision -- including having to register as a sex offender, which meant that while he was at school he had

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to be escorted, and he could not participate in school activities aside from attending class.

"He just wanted to get it over with. (He) thought maybe he was going to get his probation, do his probation, go back to playing (football)," his mother said. "Everybody's going to look at him, thinking he's a pedophile and stuff. He's not even 18 yet."

The teenager's lawyer, Dewey Keller, said that he was ethically bound to keep the boy's confidence and could not say much about the boy's case or his mother's account of what happened. "I gave them the best legal advice that I could under the circumstances at the time," Keller said.

Almost a week after the teenager entered his plea, Keller filed an appeal, and the case is now pending in Superior Court. Still, the teenager remained on the sex offender registry for months. He was removed from the registry on June 4, once his paperwork was processed by the state.

Commenting on the legislation and not the boy's case, Bob Simmons, executive director of the Council for Children's Rights, an advocacy organization based in Charlotte, said that the December 2019 change in the law will be welcome, but even at that point there will be no path back into the juvenile justice system for teenagers who are already in the adult system. Furthermore, even after the law changes, conviction of traffic offenses alone -- such as speeding -- will propel teens into the adult system, and any subsequent charges will also be in adult court.

"In a way it will trap children who are moved into adult court in adult court without any way to be pulled back out and into the juvenile system," Simmons said. "The way we phrase it is, 'Once you're an adult in court, you're always an adult in court.' There's no differentiation in the future for any low level offense."

He added, "There are ways that this law effectively does not raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction for some children under some circumstances, and the number of those circumstances is broader than I think most people are aware of."

Teenagers who are convicted in the adult court system are burdened with the negative consequences of a criminal record for the rest of their lives, Simmons said. They may not be able to find jobs or housing, and could be barred from joining the military.

In juvenile court, they stand a better chance of rehabilitation. There, things they did wrong are called "offenses," not crimes. They have engaged in delinquency, not criminal conduct, and there are a wide range of consequences, which are intended to teach them the skills they need to pursue a better path when the case is finished, Simmons said.

"In the adult court none of that occurs. The adult court, all they focus on is, 'Did the person commit the crime, and if they committed the crime, what is the punishment going to be?' "

In the new legislation, 16- and 17-year-olds charged with serious felonies -- crimes like robberies or violent assaults -- will be transferred into Superior Court once they are indicted or if probable cause is established to charge them with the crime. Juveniles who commit serious adult crimes, some say, deserve to be treated as adults in court.

State Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said that he voted in favor of the legislation because most experts say raising the age for adult prosecution from 16 to 18 for low-level and non-violent crimes reduces the likelihood of recidivism.

"It was important to me that we maintain the policy of charging 16- or 17-year-olds as adults when they commit serious crimes, and this legislation does that," Hall said. "It is important to remember that the point of this legislation is to give young offenders charged with non-violent crimes a second chance. However, the bar to having a second chance is (a) high one."

In the case of the Caldwell County teenager above, the mother of the girl said the punishment the teenage boy received was deserved, regardless, and that he deserves to be on the sex offender registry. She said that the teenager, who is tall with broad shoulders and a hulking frame, cornered her daughter.

"The punishment does fit the crime," she said.

Reporter Kara Fohner can be reached at 828-610-8721.

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