Maryland Senate discussions around legislation to stop automatically charging minors as adults for certain crimes Wednesday morphed into a debate over the efficacy of the state’s Department of Juvenile Services.

“My concern with this bill is that DJS is a mess. DJS is a wreck. DJS has a secretary that spends money on all these new, shiny ideas, and has documented zero of the outcomes,” state Sen. William Folden, a Frederick County Republican, said in a hearing of the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Tuesday.

The bill, presented by Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Will Smith on behalf of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, would stop automatically charging children between 14 and 15 years old as adults when they are charged with crimes punishable by a life sentence if committed by an adult. Those who are 16 and 17 would have their cases heard in juvenile court if they are arrested on a firearm, kidnapping, abduction, robbery or attempted robbery, first-degree assault or third-degree sex offense charges.

Third-degree sex offenses occur when a person is using a weapon or threatening or physically harming someone while also committing sexual assault.

It would be incumbent on the Department of Juvenile Services to forward cases to the local state’s attorney’s office. Those cases and any resulting penalties would ultimately be decided in the juvenile court system, which is a part of the Maryland Judiciary.

These cases often start in adult criminal court. The burden lies on defense attorneys to have them waived down to juvenile court. Under the bill, minors facing these charges would enter the system through the juvenile courts, and the burden would be on the prosecution to have the cases waived up to criminal court.

Much of Tuesday’s testimony from juvenile justice advocates rested on the notion that the process of automatically charging children as adults should be abolished entirely.

A call to fix DJS first

Smith, a Democrat, said he “fundamentally” believes “we need to get there,” but thinks more needs to be done to address issues within the Department of Juvenile Services first.

“A lot of these problems took decades to create, and they’re going to take a long time to fix, but this is a fundamental step that we can take to do that,” he said.

Catherine Rosenblatt, the deputy chief of the juvenile division for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, said she sees “many instances of youth waiting to be connected with services” in real-time, noting that the Department of Juvenile Services has asked judges to modify cases because of “extensive waitlists” at their facilities.

“The proposed change in legislation for these serious and violent offenses would place additional burdens on an already over-taxed agency,” she said.

Rosenblatt said her office has filed motions to waive cases that start in the juvenile courts up to adult court, but it’s much more common for them to stay in the juvenile system because there’s a “belief” that services are available for them there.

“Unfortunately, what we’ve found time and time again is that the services available, that’s in name only,” she said.

State Sen. Charles Sydnor, a Democrat, wondered where the miscommunication lies.

“If you’re asking, ‘Hey, do you have this available?’ and I tell you, ‘Yes,’ then you should be able to rely on that ‘yes.’ So what’s happening?” he asked Rosenblatt.

“That, I believe, is not a question for the state’s attorney,” she responded. “It’s a question for the Department of Juvenile Services.”

The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee was briefed by Department of Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi in early January when they learned about the few services available to kids who need treatment and the agency’s inability to track them adequately.

Folden asked why the legislature should let Schiraldi’s agency be responsible for forwarding more cases when he puts policies in place that, to him, are “contrary to public safety.”

Kara Aanenson, the director of legislation, policy, and reform for the Department of Juvenile Services, told Folden that a child alleged to have committed one of the offenses under the bill would be mandated to enter the court system.

“DJS does not have the authority to resolve those cases,” said at the hearing. “They have to go forward to the court. They go to the state’s attorney, they make their decision on how to move forward.”

Smith pointed to the bill’s fiscal note, which projects a $12.3 million decrease in expenditures from the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services should it become law.

“What if you had $12.3 million to reinvest into those services and into that oversight?” he asked. “Again, talking about government efficiency, this is something we can do right now, today, to have better outcomes for public safety and government efficiency.”

According to Smith, most cases where minors face these charges are waived from criminal court to the juvenile court system. He said that, between 2017 and 2019, approximately 85% of cases where youth were automatically charged as adults were waived down to the juvenile courts.

In 2023, 489 of 839 cases were transferred to juvenile court.

“The juvenile justice system is already ingesting the work that you see before you,” Smith said. “So, why are we wasting time going through the adult system only to come back down?”

Smith said that the current practice of automatically charging minors in adult court is “fundamentally out of sorts for great outcomes,” noting that it costs more and takes a longer time for cases to settle because they have to go through proceedings to be waived down and often results in worse public safety outcomes.

Liz Ryan, the former administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice, said that children who are charged in the adult court system are more likely to re-offend in more violent manners than those in the juvenile justice system.

“The adult system has been proven ineffective at rehabilitating youth or keeping communities safe,” said Ryan.

Retired Maryland Circuit Court Judge Philip Caroom said that minors between 14 and 16 are “frozen in that position” when they face the adult criminal court system.

“It makes us drop out of school in 75% of the cases, it locks us up with the worst possible companions, it gives us access to illegal drugs in prison, and our criminal record prevents us from getting a good job on release,” he said. “I urge you to support Senate Bill 422 to let us use the much more successful juvenile system to reform our young people.”

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