Prosecution of Juvenile as Adults
A number of violent and serious juvenile offenders have been removed from the juvenile justice system and prosecuted in criminal courts as adults. All states including the District of Columbia allow such prosecution of juveniles as adults under certain circumstances via three basic transfer mechanisms: judicial waiver, direct filing or prosecutorial discretion, and statutory exclusion.
Judicial Waiver
In judicial waiver, the juvenile court judge is given the power to decide whether to waive its jurisdiction over the person of the juvenile and transfer the trial to a criminal court. The waiver is not automatic, however; the prosecutor handling the case must first file a motion to the effect. The court is under legal obligation to consider judicial waiver using some criteria, such as the offender's age, the nature of the offense, criminal history, and whether the juvenile is amenable to rehabilitation.
Prosecutorial Discretion
In prosecutorial discretion, or direct filing, it is left to the prosecutor to choose the court that will acquire jurisdiction over a case in situations where both the juvenile and criminal courts have concurrent jurisdiction. While the provision for judicial waiver had been around for some time as part of state statutes, only a few states have incorporated prosecutorial discretion over serious juvenile offenders into their laws. This transfer mechanism is usually applied to certain cases only, based on the age and offense of the juvenile offender, and sometimes on the criminal history.
Statutory Exclusion
Statutory exclusion, in general, pertains to provisions that automatically exclude certain juvenile offenders from the original jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Exclusions are usually limited by requiring criteria with respect to age and offense.
Jurisdictions that apply this transfer mechanism usually lower the upper age limit that can be tried in a juvenile court, thus excluding large numbers of juveniles from juvenile jurisdiction. For example, all 17-year-olds have been excluded by some State legislatures; in other states, all 16- or 17-year-olds have been excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction. In all these cases, juveniles are considered adults for purposes of criminal prosecution.
Since criminal trials can result in stiffer penalties for the juvenile offender, you will need an attorney with a wide experience defending adults in criminal cases.