Youth charging reform is finally moving in Maryland, but not everyone is happy

For more than a decade, criminal justice reform advocates have fought to end “auto-charging,” the practice of placing teenagers directly into the adult legal system when they are accused of certain crimes.

The bill finally cleared a key hurdle, and the full Maryland Senate is expected to approve it Friday. It’s a sign of shifting political attitudes on juvenile justice, which has been boosted by declining crime and more trust in new leadership at the state’s Department of Juvenile Services.

The bill is also a product of the give-and-take of the legislative process. Both critics and advocates are unhappy with the Senate proposal but see it as the best chance for getting something passed.

“Every step forward is movement forward,” said Natasha Dartigue, Maryland’s top public defender. “The data still speaks to the need to end the automatic charging of children as adults [entirely].”

A companion House bill has had a committee hearing.

Ending auto-charging has long been a top priority for criminal justice reform advocates, who say Maryland has one of the most regressive laws in the nation when it comes to handling youth crime.

The Senate’s version of the bill would shorten the list of charges that automatically land teens in adult court but not by as many offenses as advocates wanted.

Assault and gun possession, the offenses that lead to most adult charges against teenagers, would shift to the juvenile court’s jurisdiction under the bill, while carjacking, armed robbery and murder charges would continue going directly to adult court. Prosecutors would still be able to ask a judge to move cases into adult court, even if they start in juvenile court.

The slimmed-down bill absorbed another piece of legislation that prohibits youths charged as adults from being housed in adult jails, but that requirement wouldn’t take effect for three years. And the amended bill would require Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services to detain young people charged with gun offenses and violent crimes at first, rather than immediately releasing them, codifying an existing DJS practice.

That was enough to win over two Republicans at the Senate committee vote.

The changes are typical of the legislative process in Annapolis, but they left reformers feeling disheartened and failed to win over prosecutors, who argue the bill would funnel more youths into a system that is not ready to support them.

“This legislation looks to overwhelm an already overburdened juvenile system, putting the interests of the accused juvenile offender ahead of the rights of the victims,” Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, a Democrat, said in a news release from the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Association.

The association of Maryland’s 24 state’s attorneys wants the General Assembly to put the legislation on hold for three years so DJS can build up its programming for young people.

Advocates say the amended legislation doesn’t go far enough to protect young people. The bill was already considered a compromise before the amendments were added in committee, said Dayvon Love, the director of public policy for the think tank Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle.

The bill does positive things, Love said, but “my concern is that if we don’t do this now, and do it expansively enough, then we’re not guaranteed that the legislature is going to take this up [again] anytime soon.”

Sen. Will Smith, the chair of the Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee and the bill’s lead sponsor, called the bill’s progress historic after 14 years of attempts at youth charging reform.

He said he worked to balance the interests of reform advocates and prosecutors.

“When this works, we’re going to have good information and a past record of performance to show that, when we want further reform, this is how to do it,” he said. “I understand the frustration from both sides of the table, but we’ve really taken as much input from them as possible.”

New leadership in DJS, especially, helped put lawmakers at ease this year. Gov. Wes Moore’s administration inherited an agency hobbled by long-standing disinvestment, and his first pick to run the agency, veteran criminal justice reformer Vincent Schiraldi, failed to win lawmakers’ confidence.

Schiraldi’s successor, Betsy Fox Tolentino, has acknowledged that quickly providing rehabilitative services for youth remains a challenge for the agency. Her message also hasn’t changed much from Schiraldi’s — that young people belong in the juvenile system, where they can get services alongside accountability.

But her background as a technocrat and long-standing partnerships with law enforcement seem to have given the General Assembly greater confidence in the agency’s ability to handle changes to auto-charging.

Supporters of the bill also pointed to new findings about the House of Reformation and Instruction for Colored Children, a segregated facility in Cheltenham where more than 200 boys died from 1870 to 1939.

Smith opened his testimony in favor of the bill with a photograph of the children who were incarcerated at the House of Reformation.

Today, Maryland charges more children as adults per capita than all other states but Alabama, he said. More than 80% of those children are Black, even though less than one-third of the state’s youth population is Black.

“There’s a direct nexus and through line from this history to the current practices,” the Montgomery County Democrat said.

Maryland’s Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform & Emerging & Best Practices recommended ending auto-charging late last year, marking the first time the respected group had formally endorsed a policy position.

Reformers felt the combination of these factors would be enough to finally convince the legislature to change Maryland’s auto-charging law and overcome the political reluctance that has blocked the bill’s movement. Juvenile justice is a hot potato for lawmakers, who are sensitive to media coverage of youth crime and previously backed off reforms when faced with negative headlines.

Andre Davis, a former federal judge who leads the juvenile justice reform commission, said the “confluence of factors” might be enough to encourage significant auto-charging revisions. Now, with the Senate version significantly amended, Davis said he is watching the House of Delegates closely.

“What has come out of the Senate is progress, but I regret the amendments,” Davis said. “We will see what comes out of the House and what the final product looks like.”

Del. N. Scott Phillips, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, said he is confident auto-charging legislation will pass the House in some form. The caucus has made youth charging reform a priority.

“I would have loved for them to have kept more of the charges in [the juvenile court’s jurisdiction],” Phillips, a Baltimore County Democrat, said of the Senate version. But he’s pleased it’s moving.

“I’m encouraged right now,” he added.

Banner reporter Brenda Wintrode contributed to this article.