Brief Description: Clarifying provisions relating to automatic transfer of jurisdiction from juvenile court.

Sponsors: By Representatives Roberts, McDonald, Darneille, Moeller, Ericks, Lantz, McCune, Dickerson and Kagi.

House Committee on Juvenile Justice & Family Law
Senate Committee on Human Services & Corrections

Background:

In general, the juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction over juveniles under age 18 who are charged with a criminal offense, traffic infraction, or violation. However, in some situations, the case is transferred to adult court and juvenile court does not have jurisdiction.

A case may be transferred to adult court through an automatic transfer procedure that permits the case to be filed directly into adult court and never enter juvenile court. A case may also be transferred to adult court if a court holds a decline hearing and decides to decline juvenile court jurisdiction.

A case must be automatically transferred to adult court if the juvenile is 16 or 17 years old and the alleged offense is a:

• serious violent offense; or
• violent offense and the offender has a criminal history consisting of:
• one or more prior serious violent offenses;
• two or more prior violent offenses; or
• three or more of any combination of the following offenses which were committed after the juveniles 13th birthday and were prosecuted separately: any class A felony, any class B felony, vehicular assault, or manslaughter in the second degree.

In a recent Washington Supreme Court case, State v. Salavea, the court found that whether an offense may be transferred to adult court is determined by the date the prosecutor files the charges rather than the date of the offense. The court looked at the statute and found that if the Legislature intended that the determination of whether to automatically transfer a case to adult court be based on the age of the offender at the time the offense took place, it could have used language to indicate this intent. The fact that the Legislature failed to add this language was viewed as an intent to have the transfer determination be based upon the date the case was filed.

Summary:

A juvenile must be 16 or 17 years old at the time the offense is committed in order for the automatic transfer of jurisdiction statute to apply.

Votes on Final Passage:

House   96   0
Senate   45   0

Effective: July 24, 2005