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The Alabama House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday heard a bill that would remove a judge’s ability to grant a 16 year old who is charged with murder or capital murder a youthful offender status.
HB146, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pettus, R-Killen, states that, instead of receiving youthful offender status, anyone charged with murder or capital murder at the age of 16 or above would be “charged, arrested, and tried as an adult.”
Rep. Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika, inquired about cases where individuals in a car could be charged with murder for being at the scene without having committed the crime themselves.
“One person murders someone, but there’s four people in the car. Usually, when that happens, they all get charged with murder, right? I’ve seen it plenty of times,” said Gray.
“Still have to go through the court, you have to be plead guilty and all that. This just says the hearing to grant you youthful offender or not would not be eligible for murder,” said Pettus.
Rep. TaShina Morris, D-Montgomery, expressed concern about taking the discretion away from a judge and continuing to fill the prison systems when it might be unnecessary.
“Imagine a 16-year-old that’s 125 pounds and doesn’t know how to deal with conflict now being sent to prison with grown men that have been in there for 30 years,” said Morris.
Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, echoed Morris’s concerns, stating that rehabilitating these individuals would be more beneficial than “locking them up and throwing away the key.”
“How many more prisons do we need to be open? When we open up the big monster that is already scheduled to open, it’s already overcrowded. You don’t fix crime by putting people in prison, you prevent crime by educating them,” said Jackson.
Democrats on the committee voted against it. The bill received a favorable report.
