Before the cases are transferred to adult court, the juveniles are to return to the juvenile court for separate preliminary hearings, Dean on March 30, Carmack on April 1 and Hicks on April 3.
“Binding over a juvenile to be tried as an adult is a very significant decision by the court. Even though the standard for doing so is similar to a preliminary hearing, because of the weight of the decision, there is typically an exchange of discovery that takes place in juvenile bindovers. We are in the process of doing that right now,” County Prosecutor David Fornshell said this morning via text message.
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“It also means that, theoretically, if any of the cases are bound over, there would not need to be the typical length of time between an arraignment in common pleas court and the trial date because much of the discovery will already have been produced. But obviously, you still have court scheduling issues that could impact a trial date if it comes to that.”
All three were scheduled for hearings this week on the transfer before the change was decided on Friday.
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