Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, at lectern, testified at Tuesday’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Criminal justice advocates welcomed a Senate bill that would sharply reduce the number of crimes for which a juvenile could be charged as an adult.
Senate Bill 422 by Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) would raise the age at which a juvenile would be tried as an adult from 14 in the current law, to 16. It would also eliminate a number of crimes for which 16-year-olds are currently made eligible to be charge as adults.
“The juvenile system is the basic understanding that children should be treated differently. Children that are alleged to be engaged in criminal activities should be treated differently,” Public Defender Natasha Dartigue said in an interview after a nearly two-hour hearing on the bill Tuesday before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.
But Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger (D) said the bill would delay the judicial process and hurt public safety by making it possible that a 15-year-old charged for offenses such as second-degree rape, manslaughter or armed carjacking might be tried in juvenile court.
“Now you could ask a court to waive the person up [to adult court], but you would start in the juvenile court and that would take a period of time. That’s a whole big process,” said Shellenberger, who added the state Department of Juvenile Services isn’t equipped to handle additional youth to its caseload to provide various services.
The hearing comes less than a year after lawmakers passed a juvenile justice reform bill that made children as young as 10 subject to juvenile services jurisdiction. The law went into effect Nov. 1.
Public defender, advocates push for Maryland to end automatic charging of youths as adults
Under Smith’s bill, those 16 and older who are charged with a crime that could bring a life sentence, such as first-degree murder, first-degree rape, carjacking and voluntary manslaughter, would not be subject to juvenile court jurisdiction but would be tried in adult court. A whole range of other crimes for those under 16, however, could go to juvenile court, including first-degree assault, third-degree sex offense and certain offenses involving machine guns.
“The price of automatically charging youths as adults is fundamentally out of sorts for great outcomes,” Smith said in testimony to the committee he chairs. “We’re paying more money. It’s taken a longer time to dispose of cases. We’re getting worse public safety outcomes.”
He said his bill “ends that practice for a set of offenses that largely end up within the realm of the juvenile system, anyway. A lot of these problems took decades to create and they’re going to take a long time to fix.”
The bill’s fiscal note estimates that general fund expenditures for juvenile services would decrease by $12.3 million next fiscal year, but could be offset for increased rehabilitative services. In fiscal 2027, the first full fiscal year under the bill, juvenile services expenditures would decrease by $17.0 million.
The note also predicts that contractual services for psychologists in the public defender’s office would decrease by $1.4 million next fiscal year and then another $1.85 million by fiscal 2027 and beyond.
Kara Aanenson, director of legislation, policy and reform for Juvenile Services, said the agency spends about $17 million annually to accommodate youth charged as adults in juvenile detention facilities. Aanenson said the bill seeks to erase racial inequities that “promotes efficiency, fairness and better public safety outcomes for Maryland’s communities.”
According to the public defender’s office, Maryland ranked second behind Alabama in the number of teens aged 14 to 17 automatically sent to adult court. The office notes that in 2022, about 12% of teenagers tried as adults were convicted.
The office’s 2024 report notes it represented 618 youths charged as adults.
Some witnesses Tuesday said the bill doesn’t go far enough.
Josh Rovner, a Montgomery County resident who it director of youth justice at national nonprofit advocacy group called The Sentencing Project, said there’s no evidence that carving out certain offenses from starting in juvenile court “is better for public safety.” In addition, he said youths who enter the adult system “increases rates of violence.”
But several prosecutor’s offices testified against the bill, including Catharine Rosenblatt with the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office. She said the bill, if passed, would place additional burdens on “overtaxed agencies” such as Juvenile Services.
“There’s a belief that the juvenile system has this wide variety of services available, and unfortunately what we found time and time again, they do not. That’s in name only,” said Rosenblatt, the office’s deputy division chief in juvenile courts division.
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