Justices Curb Law on Prosecution of Youths as Adults

A California Court of Appeal struck down a key portion of a tough new juvenile crime law Wednesday, ruling that prosecutors should not be able to decide unilaterally whether teenagers are tried as adults.

Proposition 21, passed overwhelmingly by voters last March, gave prosecutors, instead of judges, the right to decide whether teenagers facing many types of serious charges should face adult penalties for their crimes.

The ruling, if it withstands an appeal, could affect about 300 to 400 teens who have already been convicted or are being tried under the ballot provision the court struck down. Defense attorneys predicted that Wednesday’s decision will affect thousands of young offenders in coming years.

The ruling will not affect youthful offenders charged with certain kinds of murders and sex crimes because, under Proposition 21 and earlier laws, they must be tried as adults. With many other crimes, Proposition 21 has given prosecutors the discretion to try youths 14 and older as adults without seeking a judge’s approval.

In the first appellate ruling on a challenge to the law, a three-member panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego held that the measure’s key provision violates state and federal separation of powers doctrines because it gives judicial power to prosecutors.

“It gives the prosecutor the ability to prevent a court from giving an otherwise eligible and fit juvenile the benefits of a Juvenile Court disposition,” Justice Alex McDonald wrote in the 2-1 decision.

Lawyers said Wednesday that the ruling will be binding on trial courts statewide, although that could change if other Courts of Appeal decide similar challenges differently. The constitutionality of Proposition 21 will probably be ultimately decided by the California Supreme Court.

Coming from a relatively conservative court, the ruling dealt a major blow to the measure.

“One of the central focuses of Proposition 21 was to treat minors more like adults and to transfer more juvenile cases to the adult system,” said Robert Kim, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This guts Proposition 21,” said Kerry Steigerwalt, the lead defense attorney in the case decided by the court.

In a statement late Wednesday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley called Proposition 21 “bad lawmaking” and said he would suspend discretionary filings in adult court that had been authorized by the ballot measure. Instead, he said, his prosecutors will resume asking Juvenile Court judges whether the offenders can be tried as adults.

“It is an important, important decision to place a minor in adult court and that decision should be made by a prosecutor at an early stage in the process and then checked and balanced by a judicial officer,” Cooley said. “If we didn’t take this action, hundreds of cases might be affected.”

Prosecutors who support Proposition 21 noted that challenges to the measure are already pending in other appellate courts and predicted that they will win at least one of them.

“We’re disappointed by the court’s ruling, but we certainly don’t think it’s over,” said David LaBahn, deputy executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn. “One way or another there will be an appeal.”

The court’s ruling left in place other provisions of the ballot measure that make public a variety of juvenile crime records and increase punishment for such offenses as gang-related felonies.

But by striking down the section taking away judges’ decision-making powers, the ruling, defense lawyers said, will permit some juveniles now being tried as adults to request that their cases be sent to Juvenile Court. Juveniles who have already been convicted under the ballot provision may now seek to have those convictions overturned, lawyers said.

William J. LaFond, a San Diego attorney who represented one of the defendants in the case before the appellate court, predicted the decision will result in a slew of requests to move cases.

“I am not at all surprised by the ruling because the shift of decision-making power from judges to prosecutors violated some really fundamental principles,” LaFond said.

Being tried as a juvenile offers several advantages. The juvenile justice system provides services to rehabilitate offenders, and all juvenile offenders must be released by the age of 25.

For a teenager who commits a robbery with a firearm, the medium term in Juvenile Court is less than three years in the California Youth Authority, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. By contrast, the minimum sentence for an offender convicted of that same offense in adult court is 12 years.

Wednesday’s ruling was joined by Justice Richard Huffman, a former assistant district attorney in San Diego County. Justice Gilbert Nares dissented.

Nares argued that juveniles have no constitutional right to a juvenile justice system. If prosecutors are not allowed to decide to send certain offenders to adult court, voters might simply abolish the juvenile justice system altogether, he said.

“I believe the people of this state have the constitutional power and the right to take such a measured approach to combat serious and violent crimes,” Nares wrote.

The ruling came in the prosecution of eight juveniles from an affluent San Diego neighborhood who allegedly chased and beat five Mexican migrants last year.

Prosecutors say the youths, ages 14 to 17, used ethnic slurs against the victims, four of whom are in their 60s. The defendants have been charged with robbery, assault, hate crimes and elder abuse.

San Diego prosecutors used their authority under Proposition 21 to determine that the juveniles should be tried in adult court. Defense attorneys then challenged the measure.

San Diego County Dist. Atty. Paul Pfingst said at a news conference Wednesday that he is leaning against asking the California Supreme Court to review the ruling because it would delay the trial of the teenagers by at least a year and make it more difficult to win convictions.

Instead, he said, prosecutors may ask a Juvenile Court judge to declare the defendants fit to be tried as adults. At the same time, the district attorney said he may ask the Supreme Court to decertify the appellate ruling, Manduley vs. Superior Court (D036356), so that it wouldn’t affect any other cases.

Calling the attack on the migrants “one of the most shameful incidents this county has seen in quite a long time,” Pfingst said, “This is just the type of case the voter had in mind” when Proposition 21 was passed.

Californians’ passage of the tough juvenile justice measure was part of a national trend to treat youthful offenders as adults. During the 1990s, about 40 states changed their laws to make it easier to send teenagers to prison.

The measure went into effect the day after voters approved it in March. Some county prosecutors used their new charging authority sparingly, while others, particularly in Los Angeles County under former Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, embraced it. Los Angeles County prosecutors tried about 25% more teenagers as adults last year because of Proposition 21.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond, who has filed about half a dozen cases under Proposition 21 in Van Nuys Superior Court, said he has appreciated the discretion the measure has given prosecutors.

“It enables us to get extremely serious cases to trial in an efficient manner,” Diamond said.

Los Angeles Public Defender Michael Judge hailed the ruling, not only because it will probably mean fewer youths will be tried as adults, but because it will bring “greater trust” in the justice system.

Studies and figures compiled by the U.S Justice Department have shown for years that “African American children are disproportionately tried as adults,” Judge said.

Bill Weiss, who supervised the Van Nuys branch of the public defender’s office, said it is important that judges rather than prosecutors decide who will be tried as adults.

“We trust judges more because they are neutral fact-finders rather than an office that’s beholden to the public and is highly political,” Weiss said.

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Times staff writers Tony Perry, Greg Krikorian, Caitlin Liu, Anna Gorman and Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this story.