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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM |
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| www.cjcj.org |
| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 1622 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
At least 14 youths, all but two of them believed to be under 18, have been arrested in the beating death of Charles Young Jr. And one of them, a 10-year-old, could become the youngest person ever charged as an adult with homicide in the United States.
One of the 14 was released, but at least two other suspects remained at large Wednesday night.
Young, 36, died Tuesday of injuries he suffered when a mob of teenagers attacked him Sunday night with bats, shovels and folding chairs. Young, himself a convicted felon, punched a boy in the group earlier that night after the 13-year-old pelted Young with an egg. The attack has drawn national attention and local outrage. At a news conference in the narrow street where Young was beaten, Common Council President Marvin Pratt called for "ongoing dialogue" between residents and city officials.
Four suspects -- two ages 16, one 17 and one 19 -- were arrested Wednesday, bringing the total arrested to 14, police said Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday night, Police Chief Arthur Jones said a total of 15 had been arrested, and that police were still looking for three more. Details were not available.
Three youths were ordered held in secure detention after hearings in Children's Court Wednesday afternoon, joining five others who went through the process Tuesday.
Formal charges are expected this afternoon, District Attorney E. Michael McCann said.
At the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Joy Hammond told Court Commissioner Dennis Cimpl that prosecutors were working under a theory that the crime was a first-degree reckless homicide for all the suspects, meaning that the suspects, even the 10-year-old, would automatically be charged as adults.
After the hearing, she and McCann downplayed that, saying they were required to provide a prosecution theory to the court and may file a different charge today.
"We have some tough decisions to make," McCann said.
A 1996 state law mandates that children ages 10 to 16 are automatically sent to adult court if they are charged with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide or second-degree intentional homicide.
Those between ages 10 and 14 can be waived back into juvenile court at a later hearing.
People 17 or older are considered adults by the court system.
Of about 20 states that automatically send those charged with the most serious homicide counts to adult court, only Wisconsin automatically puts those as young as 10 in adult court, according to a 1997 U.S. Department of Justice study, the latest available. A couple of states did not specify an age.
Under Wisconsin law, the judge at a "reverse waiver" hearing must weigh whether the juvenile would get adequate treatment in the adult system; whether a transfer back to Children's Court would depreciate the seriousness of the offense; and whether keeping the juvenile in adult court is necessary to deter him and others from committing similar crimes.
Cynthia Wynn, a Milwaukee assistant public defender representing the 10-year-old, said fewer than a handful of youths age 13 -- and no one younger -- have been tried as adults on homicide charges in Wisconsin.
Latasha R. Armstead, 13, was the youngest child in Wisconsin history tried as an adult for first-degree intentional homicide. In 1999, she received a life term with parole eligibility in 17 years for helping her boyfriend kill her grandmother's visiting nurse.
And national experts said the 10-year-old would be the first nationally, saying that even charging a 13-year-old as an adult with homicide is still relatively rare.
In 2000, Michigan prosecutors charged Nathaniel Abraham as an adult in the second-degree murder of another teenager. He was convicted. Abraham was 11 at the time of the slaying; the judge sentenced the boy to a juvenile detention center anyway.
Last year in Florida, 14-year-old Nathaniel Brazill received 28 years in prison for shooting his favorite teacher, and another 14-year-old, Lionel Tate, received a life-without-parole sentence for a homicide that occurred two years earlier.
McCann said the question of whether to charge the 10-year-old as an adult -- and for that matter the three suspects who are merely 13 -- would receive special consideration.
"Hesitation for a 10-year-old?" said McCann. "Yes there would be hesitation. We're discussing it."
A police report says the 10-year-old made a statement to police without a lawyer present, after being "advised of his Miranda Warnings, which he states he understands." The report says the boy admitted he struck Young twice in the legs and twice in the back with a 2-foot tree limb.
"I am unaware of there ever being a case where a 10-year-old has been charged as an adult with murder," said David Doi, executive director of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice in Washington, D.C. That organization represents all but two governor-appointed state juvenile justice advisory groups in the country.
"Our position is that no child under the age of 14 ought to be charged as an adult for anything," he said.
Deborah Vargas, senior policy analyst for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, added that she's never heard of anyone as young as 10 being charged.
A national trend
She said the national trend of states lowering the age of those who can be tried as adults dates to the late 1980s and escalated into the 1990s.
From 1992 through 1995, 40 states passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be charged as adults, according to the Justice Department study.
Wynn said she would aggressively contest any effort to try the 10-year-old as an adult.
"There are a lot of important decisions that are a client's decision to make -- whether to plead guilty or testify, for example," she said, adding that she doubted a 10-year-old could adequately understand those decisions.
Meanwhile, the three suspects in court Wednesday appeared before Cimpl with attorneys, but no parents. The youngest, 13, looked smaller than his age and unaware of what was happening.
His attorney, Richard Hart, described the boy as very young, immature and slow. His family, including his mother, has a history of mental illness, Hart said.
The boy attends school but does not know where, only that he gets on a bus, the attorney said.
Despite his unimposing appearance, the boy is suspected of playing an extensive role in the attack on Young, from the start to the finish. Prosecutor Hammond said the boy and his older brother, 16, dragged Young from inside the house where he fled.
Hammond said the older brother threw a bottle at Young as the confrontation began, then waited with the larger group of boys at a house where they believed Young would seek shelter. During the beating on the porch, the 16-year-old hit Young in the head with a shovel at least four times, stepping back each time to avoid being splattered with blood, Hammond said.
"It's just chilling, judge," she said.
That 16-year-old's attorney, Michael Backes, said he expected to raise questions about his client's mental health in future hearings.
Cimpl said the boy told authorities he had not attended school because his mother did not know where to send him.
Hammond told the commissioner that the second 16-year-old in court Wednesday joined the group after Young had been beaten and was on the porch of the house. At that time, the boy grabbed the victim in a wrestling hold he had seen on television, maneuvering to pull up Young's head from behind, exposing him to further blows.
A fourth suspect scheduled to appear before Cimpl Wednesday was released to his mother before the hearings began. Prosecutor Hammond said there was not enough evidence to hold the boy.
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