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Friday, July 24, 2009
Ind. Courts - "Rare ruling means boy, 13, will face adult court"
John Tuohy reports today in the Indianapolis Star:
A 13-year-old boy charged with murder will be one of the youngest defendants ever to face trial in an adult court in Indiana.In transferring Blade Reed from the juvenile justice system, Brown Circuit Judge Judith Stewart acknowledged difficult questions and some uncertainty about the consequences -- but issued a ruling that remains rare in Indiana. * * *
Prosecutors say Blade's 17-year-old brother, Bennie Reed, shot 84-year-old Richard Voland and stabbed Voland's wife, Mary, after breaking into their rural Brown County home in November.
Blade entered the house after the attack, slashed Mary Voland across the neck and helped hide the gun used in the shooting, police said. Mary Voland, 77, survived the attack.
Bennie Reed has been charged as an adult with murder and other felonies.
In her ruling, Stewart said that if convicted, Blade Reed would need a longer prison sentence than he would get in the juvenile justice system.
"The evidence taken as whole has failed to show that the best interests of the community are served by maintaining the child in the juvenile system," Stewart wrote. She said adult prison would keep him locked up longer and "would prevent the child from returning to his and Ms. Voland's neighborhood when he is still in his teens or early adulthood, a time when his immaturity may cause him to pose more of a threat than later in life."
An 11-year-old charged with murder was tried as an adult in Starke County in the early 1920s but was not convicted. Glick said that despite a brief increase in waivers to adult court more than a decade ago, it's unusual for children younger than 16 to be transferred from the juvenile justice system.
About 50 juveniles are in Indiana adult prisons. The youngest ever held in an adult state prison was 14, Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison said.
The juvenile inmates are kept separate from adults at a building at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. There, they receive mandatory GED training, drug and anger management counseling and other services.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 24, 2009 09:44 AM
Posted to Ind. Trial Ct. Decisions