The study, “Falling Through the Cracks: A New look at Ohio’s Youth in the Adult Criminal Justice System” showed that the incidents in which courts send juvenile offenders to ‘adult court’ - called bindovers - are dropping statewide and locally. Some of that decline may be because juvenile court cases have also been declining, however. In 2006, Butler county had 11,493 juvenile court cases. That number dropped to 8,816 in 2010, but rose to 9,283 last year. There were 18 bindovers to adult court in 2006 in Butler County but only five last year.
Two legislative actions are seen as having an impact on the number of bindovers. Both have been utilized in Butler County, but they have been used locally in unusual ways.
House Bill 86, which took effect in September 2011, allows for a reverse bindover if a juvenile offender is convicted of a lesser crime in adult court. The case goes back to juvenile court for sentencing so the youth doesn’t have an adult criminal record. Juvenile Court Judge Ron Craft was forced to send Lance Tiernan to the adult court on a murder charge, after he was seen on video slamming Anthony Parker’s head onto a hard floor at the One Way Farm group home in Fairfield Twp. in December 2011.
A jury found Tiernan guilty of involuntary manslaughter — which is not a mandatory bindover crime — so Judge Patricia Oney sentenced Tiernan to 54 days in jail and sent the case back to Craft to decide if Tiernan could be sentenced in juvenile court. Craft sent him back to Oney to ensure he abided by his sanctions, namely five years probation, community service and other requirements.
Tiernan’s case also fits in with Senate Bill 377, which took effect in September 2012. That law stipulates that juveniles under the age of 21 must be housed in juvenile detention facilities unless they are deemed dangerous. Tiernan turned 18 while he was awaiting his trial and was in the Butler County Jail. The new law took effect while he was serving his sentence but he was never transferred to the juvenile facilities because his hearing with Craft was delayed until after his 54 days were up.
Some studies say prison isn’t the answer for youth offenders and the juvenile system is more conducive to rehabilitation. According to a Villanova University School of Law study, imprisoning juvenile offenders can be counterproductive.
“The juvenile offenders interviewed indicated that being tried as adults taught them, apparently for the first time, that their criminal behavior had real consequence,” the study reads. “The challenge would be how to deliver this ‘wake-up-call’ without inflicting the ‘permanently disfiguring’ and counter-rehabilitative effects of the criminal justice system. Scared straight programs, shock incarceration programs and boot camps have all proved ineffective in reducing recidivism in juvenile offenders.”
One of Tiernan’s attorneys Nick Graman said his client was understandably scared while he was being held in the jail on a $1 million bond.
“He’s in with grown men. That would be scary if you were 35, let alone 17,” he said. “It’s a much different environment there and understandably he’s scared.”
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser said he had no choice but to seek a bindover in Tiernan’s case and recently that of Mitchell Simon, the Liberty Twp. teen who allegedly tried to burn his parents to death. However, he said the juvenile judges do understand the adult system isn’t the best place for teens.
“The evolutionary process of the court is to be more professional in handling juvenile diagnostic issues that can rehabilitate youthful offenders, as opposed to a more automatic approach of ‘oh this is a heinous offense let’s kick ‘em up to the common pleas court and be done with it’,” he said. “We don’t have that wash-our-hands attitude that may have existed 30 years ago.”
Tiernan’s other attorney, Charlie M. Rittgers, said they were lucky to get their client educational opportunities while he was in the jail, even though other elements that are available in the juvenile system couldn’t be accessed.
“The juvenile justice system has more resources than the adult system which can be used to help identify and correct areas of need for the child,” he said. “A child is just that, a child, even when they are 16 or 17 years old.”
Erin Davies, a public policy attorney with the law center, said as part of the study, juvenile court judges who were queried said they would also like the legislature to give them full discretion over their cases and eliminate the mandatory bindovers for serious youthful offenders.
Twelfth District Court of Appeals Judge Mike Powell, who was Warren County’s juvenile judge for a dozen years, only bound over four cases between 2006 and 2012. He said he recalls one case vividly. It was a Kentucky teen who robbed and brutally raped a woman. He said that case was definitely one for the adult courts, but he still thinks judges should have discretion.
“I think the general assembly ought to trust us to do the jobs we’ve been elected to do, which is to judge each case on its individual merits,” he said. “I appreciate the guidelines the general assembly gives us, but I think it’s important that judges be able to exercise their discretion in how they want to treat cases.”
Davies said the state has made great strides in this arena, but more work is needed.
“The research and the trends are all there saying moving youth to juvenile court is a smart, research-based decision to make,” she said. “I think it’s really impressive that Ohio has made some good steps forward, but we really need to keep building on this so we can keep both our youth and communities safer.”
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