Louisiana legislature advances constitutional amendment allowing more juveniles to be tried as adults News
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Louisiana legislature advances constitutional amendment allowing more juveniles to be tried as adults

Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature has approved a constitutional amendment that would empower law-makers to expand the number of crimes in which juveniles between 14 and 16 years old can tried as adults.

The relevant constitutional amendment surrounds Article V, Section 19 (Special Juvenile Procedures) of the Constitution of Louisiana. The section currently outlines 15 violent juvenile offenses, including murder, rape, and aggravated burglary, that prosecutors can handle in adult courts. Any changes to the list of crime must be approved by voters.

The constitutional amendment, proposed by Republican Senator Heather Cloud, would grant legislators the authority, with a two-thirds vote, to determine which juvenile crimes can be transferred to adult courts. If enacted, juveniles convicted of the specified felony offenses would receive both a juvenile sentence and a consecutive adult sentence, to be served once the offender turns 21.

According to the Louisiana Illuminator, prior to voting in the House of Representative on Friday, one of the bill’s sponsors, Republican Debbie Villio of Kenner, made a last-minute change to limit the scope of offenses to felonies only. Before this change, the amendment would have permitted the Legislature to create laws allowing minors to be moved to adult prisons for “any crime”. This adjustment aimed to address concerns among lawmakers about sending more young people to adult prisons.

Nevertheless, critics expressed concerns about the amendment’s necessity, fearing it could instead become “an attempt to charge younger children as adults for less serious offenses.” For example, in the hearing, Cloud claimed the amendment would help tackle situations like the murder of 73-year-old Linda Frickey during a carjacking in New Orleans in 2022. However, earlier this year, the court already sent the four teenagers to adult prisons under charge of murder.

The amendment awaits voters’ approval in a statewide election on March 29, 2025, to become Louisiana Law.

This is part of a broader effort in Louisiana, which has the second-highest incarceration rate in the nation. Since taking office in January this year, Republican Governor Jeff Landry has passed a number of tough-on-crime bills. In March signed a law to treat 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system, becoming one of the five states with such classification. In June the Louisiana legislature approved a bill to provide surgical castration as a sentencing option for certain aggravated sexual offenses against children younger than 13.

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