Wisconsin Lawyer
Vol. 80, No. 6, June 2007
The State Bar Board of Governors at its meeting on March 9, 2007, adopted a public policy position at the request of the Children & the Law Section supporting legislation to raise from 17 to 18 the age at which persons are subject to adult court.
Since the introduction of Assembly Bill 82 last legislative session (which would have returned 17-year-olds to the juvenile court), the Children & the Law Section, in partnership with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, has been working to garner legislative support for this proposal.
Section members Eileen Hirsch, State Public Defenders Office, and Ginger Murray, Lawton & Cates, both of Madison, spoke to the board.
"For better than 100 years, 17-year-olds were initially brought into the juvenile system; however, in 1996 Wisconsin enacted a law that said all 17-year-olds in the criminal system would automatically be charged as adults," Murray said. "The initiative to treat kids under 18 as kids and not as adults is not new. In 2002, the ABA resolved seven different positions regarding juveniles being treated as juveniles. They based their resolution on a 2001 report of the Task Force on Youth and the Criminal System of the ABA Criminal Justice Section. The American Medical Association agrees. Wisconsin is one of only 13 states that currently treat kids under 18 as adults for criminal purposes."
Hirsch pointed out, "This legislation does not prevent kids from being waived to adult court on serious crimes, and the most common category of 17-year-olds charged with crimes is disorderly conduct."
The Criminal Law Section actively supports this legislation, and the Public Interest Law Section supports it in principle. A bill will be introduced this fall to return 17-year-olds to juvenile court.
Wisconsin Lawyer
