Raleigh’s Social Justice Republicans
Raise the age! Raise the age!
What is this about that has John Hood and the ACLU arm in arm singing kumbaya and in 100% agreement? Changing the age of consent? The drinking age? The age to obtain a driver license? The age to vote?
Nope. In a victory for “social justice” and “racial justice”, the GOP majority in the legislature has joined with all of the Democrats to keep 16 and 17 year olds who commit crime out of adult court. THAT, apparently, is something we’re supposed to be happy about. The “conservative revolution” in Raleigh has been unusually eager to flock to an issue that has been praised with the same language Barack Obama and William Barber and so many other Marxists have used so often to praise so many of their pet projects. Who needs to win elections when you have Republicans ready to roll over and show their bellies all ‘fer tha’ lil’ chil’ren’?
The measure passed the House 104-8. (The eight with common sense were: Boles, Brody, Cleveland, Collins, Ford,Elmore, Pittman and Stevens.)
It’s nice to be able to go back home and say “Ahm fer’ tha’ lil’ chil’ren.” But IS that what we’re really talking about here?
Back in the early 90s, I was the first driveby to interview Daniel Green — one of the two young men convicted of murdering Michael Jordan’s father. Green, when the Jordan murder had occurred, had recently been paroled from a state juvenile facility. What had he been serving time for in said juvenile facility? PUTTING AN AXE IN ANOTHER KID’S SKULL. TRYING TO SPLIT THE KID’S HEAD LIKE A WOODEN LOG.
He got juvie time for that. His victim, who I met and whose family I interviewed, survived. (His life consisted of sitting emotionlessly, almost lifeless in a wheelchair.) In a jailhouse interview, while awaiting trial for the Jordan murder, I asked Green if he had any regrets about putting the axe in that kid’s skull. Green’s answer? 
“No, not really. I didn’t really hurt him. I just made him a little passive. That’s all.”
And HE got paroled. (That was a post-parole statement.) I think it it safe to say THAT qualifies as a heinous crime. One has to wonder, if Daniel Green had been tried as an adult for that axe attack, and got meaningful prison time, whether James Jordan would be alive today.
As the social welfare state has grown, the bureaucracy has lessened the amount of responsibility parents have for their offspring. Teachers and police have their hands tied as far as disciplining the little darlings. Law enforcement is so much on the reactive side these days — waiting for something bad to happen.
The legal profession — from Mark Martin down to your local bar association — are all about scratching their colleagues’s 
backs and doing a solid for each other’s clients than for society as a whole.
Something is wrong when an axe to another person’s head gets you a slap on the wrist in juvenile court, a short confinement, and then parole. “Raise the Age” is great political PR. It gets you some cushy headlines. Scores you a few more points in the polls, and maybe some PAC money. But in the end, it doesn’t do a thing to stem the continuing decay of our societal fabric.
Cutting food stamps but getting soft on crime. What’s going on in Raleigh?
This only applies to minor offenses. Violent crimes committed by 16 and 17 year olds, will still be charged as adults
And social security was only supposed to be a short term program to help old people get through the Depression. Give government an inch, they take a mile. The point of this post is that there should not be exemptions based on age. There are some very evil people out there under the age of 18. Crimes — for people of all ages — should be evaluated in the court system based on the merits of the evidence and the terms spelled out in The Constitution. The juvenile justice system is a joke. In most cases, it is merely a developmental league for BIG TIME CRIME and “grown-up” prison.
It is rare, rare, rare for prosecutors to send a juvenile to grown up court for shoplifting or tagging a wall with spray-paint. Drug dealers like to use juvies as lookouts and mules because they know they will only get their hands slapped if they get caught. (You’ll get some serious debate if you try to call the drug trade “minor” or “non-violent.”)
You’re absolutely right, Mitch. The Daily Haymaker usually gets it right, but they obviously didn’t read the bill this time.
Minor, bratty, juvenile offenses will be treated as juvenile.
Major, heinous acts will be treated as adult offenses.
The so-called Republican legislature is simply lost in the political wilderness.
John Locke and Hood are the Establishment. They all swim in the same cesspool.
Come on, read the damned bill! This does NOT apply to serious felonies. In those cases they will be tried as adults. We were the only state in the country charging our minors as adults for less serious crimes. The fact that the democrats also supported this bill is irrelevent.
Charging minors in adult court for all offenses gives our kids police records for such things as getting into a fight at school and other ridiculous offenses. That should not follow them around when they are looking for a job as an adult. This bill was a common sense idea and supported by District Attorneys, Judges, Police and Sheriff’s and I called and talked to many of them myself and NONE that I talked with was opposed.
All kids are being tried as adults? Well, who is filling up those state juvie facilities? (They can’t ALL be murderers, can they?) The last time I looked, starting a fight IS assault. Whether it warrants prison is up to a judge and a jury. Why lessen the penalties for bad behavior?
It was a good bill and will actually help deter crime longterm by helping teens get their lives back on track when convicted of minor offenses rather than set them up on a road to ruin they cannot escape from before they even hit adulthood.
Sparing the rod and spoiling the child.
Actual it’s “spare the rod HATE the child”.
Age is just a number. Am I the only one noticing those whose birth certificate says they are in their 40s as they act like adolescents? We are giving our young people a pass on their behavior in the hopes they will someday grow up. Too many are totally out of touch with reality and fail to realize that consequences are what make people change their actions, not ignoring their bad behavior.
No wonder we have so many pathetic snowflakes. Society is encouraging it.
The fact is that these young offenders will get more actual punishment and supervision in the juvenile system than they will get in the adult system. Most of the time, the youth committing the crime will get unsupervised probation and be right back out on the street unsupervised. I do not think that is truly common sense or conservative. Placing these young people in the juvenile system is actually tougher on crime than keeping them in the adult system. I have been angered to see that facts actually do not matter with liberals and the liberal press, but I hope that will not be found to be true with conservatives.
Amen, Rep. Blust!
I wonder what will happen with the many illegal aliens and refugees without any proof who claim to be 16 or 17, and there are many of them who lie about their age. Will they have to prove their age to the courts?
The big liberal ”social justice” issue out there is coddling the sexual perverts. Too many GOP legislators, including the leaders, behaved like scared little girls with their panties in a twist in betraying the GOP base by repealing HB2. We need to clean house of those backstabbers in the primaries. Now we have our far left governor saying he is going to issue an executive order to bestow more ”rights” on homosexuals, which will probably be more of taking away rights from others in society. I suspect with the sad history on HB2, we have too many Republican wussies in the legislature to stop Roy Pooper.
Felonies such as assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer are not minor crimes. Yet they are included in the list that will be treated as juvenile acts. There is no common sense in that.
This seems like a law in search of a problem. Was not aware that 16 year olds were being prosecuted as adults for minor crimes. Why not raise the age to 21? Why not 30? Today’s kids “may” be grown up by then. Maybe we should prosecute the parents.