Teens who carry a gun during a violent crime now go straight to adult court

Before this law, a child’s case went to circuit court, the adult court, automatically only under a narrower rule limited to crimes punishable by life or death, WLBT reported; otherwise a youth court judge had to transfer it, MPB reported. Now circuit court takes the case from the start in three situations, according to the bill summary the Wire read. They are an act punishable by life or death, an act involving a deadly weapon, and a crime of violence committed while the child has a firearm. The summary says children under 13 cannot be prosecuted, though their parents can be sued.

It creates a new felony, a serious crime, for shooting into a group of two or more people. The base penalty is 5 to 15 years in prison. At a place of worship, courthouse, school, playground or park it is 5 to 20 years, and 5 to 30 if anyone in the group is under 18. For a gang member it is 10 to 30.

Stolen guns get their own ladder. Knowingly keeping or selling one is 5 years for a first conviction, and a second conviction, or a case with two or more stolen guns, counts as trafficking at 15 years or more. Selling or giving one to a child is 10 to 20 years, rising to 10 to 30 if the gun is later used in a violent crime and 10 to 40 if it is used in a murder. Schools must also tell the youth court when they expel a student and why.

Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked lawmakers for the bill and called it a way to help reduce the strain on the state’s troubled youth court system, MPB reported. Supporters, including Fitch, said it answers rising youth gun violence and repeat gun offenses, the Mississippi Independent reported.

Ken Winter, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police, called it ‘a good law,’ MPB reported. ‘It’s only going to affect people who are involved in violent crimes, and it’s going to affect people who are passing firearms down to juveniles,’ he said.

Sen. Joey Fillingane, a Republican, sponsored it. The House and Senate passed different versions. A conference committee, a small group from both chambers that works out one version, settled them March 31, and Gov. Tate Reeves signed the bill April 8, according to the bill history.

The bill faced opposition from Democrats worried about minors’ rights, MPB reported, and some pointed out that the gun only has to be present, not used. The chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus said adults have to be able to explain to kids that ‘decisions have life-changing consequences.’ Keisha Coleman of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement told MPB that prevention should be funded at the same level as enforcement.

The Wire could not find a fiscal note, the Legislature’s own estimate of what a bill will cost. The Wire’s read: the costs fall on county jails and the Department of Corrections, which hold adults, and on circuit courts and district attorneys, which now take cases youth courts used to handle. Longer sentences for stolen-gun crimes mean more prison years to pay for. The Wire found no published estimate.

The Wire’s read: for a family, the cost is the difference between the two systems. Youth court is ‘uniquely designed to address behavioral challenges and provide resources to that child and to that family,’ Hinds County Youth Court Judge Carlyn Hicks told WLBT, and those resources are not available in the adult system, she said.

If your teenager has a gun during a crime of violence, the case starts in adult court. Judge Hicks gave WLBT the example of a teen caught burglarizing a home who comes into possession of a firearm. ‘But sometimes just being there is enough. And that’s scary,’ she said.

If you sell or hand off a gun, make sure it is not stolen. Knowingly transferring a stolen gun to anyone is now a felony, and to a child it is 10 to 20 years.

Hinds County Youth Court will lose a slice of its cases to the circuit court. Judge Hicks urged parents to ‘know where your children are’ and who their friends are, telling WLBT that the resources youth court offers a family ‘are no longer available... in the adult system.’

How the Hinds County district attorney’s office uses its new power to file directly in circuit court, and whether the strain on youth court eases, as the attorney general said it would.

Whether the rule that a gun need only be present, not used, draws a court challenge. The Wire did not search court dockets for one.