A federal appeals court ruled that three Honolulu cops are not immune from a lawsuit filed by a 10-year-old girl who was handcuffed and arrested at school for allegedly drawing an offensive picture.
I feel like that map may be a little misleading. Just because a state doesn’t have a statutory age limit on treating a child as an adult doesn’t mean that is common practice. In most states, the default is that any crime committed by a suspect under the age of 18 is handled by the juvenile court system, where penalties are far less severe, unless some special nature of the crime prompts a court to try the accused as an adult (eg murder or violent rape). A few states set the juvenile cutoff a little earlier.
Just because it doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean it would never happen. Ideally you would want reasonable limits in place to prevent any possible problems in the future, like a corrupt judge and prosecutor, etc.
I feel like that map may be a little misleading. Just because a state doesn’t have a statutory age limit on treating a child as an adult doesn’t mean that is common practice. In most states, the default is that any crime committed by a suspect under the age of 18 is handled by the juvenile court system, where penalties are far less severe, unless some special nature of the crime prompts a court to try the accused as an adult (eg murder or violent rape). A few states set the juvenile cutoff a little earlier.
So it’s more like “we reserve the option to prosecute a child as an adult, but we almost never do”. http://www.jjgps.org/jurisdictional-boundaries
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2016/01/23/the-youngest-kid-ever-arrested-in-florida-was-a-4-year-old/
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/30/us/boy-12-to-be-nation-s-youngest-prison-inmate.html
Hmmm more Florida
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/02/1093313589/states-juvenile-minimum-age-arrested-advocates-change
Just because it doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean it would never happen. Ideally you would want reasonable limits in place to prevent any possible problems in the future, like a corrupt judge and prosecutor, etc.