MARYLAND – Momentum is building in Annapolis for juvenile justice reform, with multiple bills from Governor Moore, Speaker Adrienne Jones, and State Senator Mary Beth Carozza moving forward.
During a Senate Judiciary Affairs committee hearing, Senator Carozza spoke in favor of her bill, calling it a narrow bill that does not seek to completely overturn the Juvenile Interrogation Act that it is responding to.
“It’s very targeted and it’s very limited. So it allows law enforcement to question juveniles in those crimes where a juvenile has been involved with a firearm or a crime of violence,” Carozza said adding that the bill would also formalize notification of parents when kids are placed in custody and allow the parents and child to decide together if they will talk to police before a lawyer being in the room.
She tells us she is encouraged that the bill introduced by Democratic House Speaker Addriene Jones had similar language to her own.
“What that tells me is there are multiple tracks that there is an interest in passing bipartisan common sense anti-crime bills that do something about accountability,” Senator Carozza said.
But while it may be a bipartisan effort, the bill is drawing harsh criticism from the Caucus of African American leaders- saying its practices like those interrogations lead to Maryland locking up more black men than any other state.
“Picture an 11- 11-year-old boy is faced with no parent, no lawyer in the room, scared to death, and he says he committed a crime out of fear that he did not commit., and before people think that can’t happen, it’s happened over and over again,” said Convener of the CAAL Carl Snowden.
Snowden tells 47ABC that when he served as Civil Rights Chair for the office of the Attorney General of Maryland he advised on ways to reduce the prison population and shrink to prison pipeline for juveniles.
“We have a punishment system, not a justice system, so I don’t want to see us emulate in the juveniles what we have in the adult system,” Snowden said.
But Snowden tells 47ABC that he is not against accountability, but says it’s parents who should be on the hook.
“I would look at a bill to give more put more penalties towards parents who are not doing what they should be doing and raise their children. After all, ultimately, it is the parent’s responsibility, not the police, not the criminal justice system, but parents,” Snowden said.
Testifying in Support of her bill, Senator Carozza said that while she does agree juveniles can be more likely to give false testimony quote
“based on data provided by the National Registry of Exonerations, there has not been a single individual in Maryland exonerated after falsely
confessing to a crime as a juvenile.”
“What this tells me is that the constitutional analysis courts in Maryland have always engaged in, which takes into consideration of a juvenile’s age and their capacity to understand what is going on has provided adequate safeguards, and will continue to do so,” Senator Carozza said.