Maryland Just Made It Harder to Charge Violent Teens as Adults. Prosecutors Across the State Opposed It.

By MDBayNews Staff

It passed yesterday. By tonight, it will be on Governor Moore’s desk.

The Youth Charging Reform Act cleared the House of Delegates 92-39 on April 7, completing its journey through the General Assembly over the objections of prosecutors from Baltimore City, Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and Anne Arundel County — all Democrats — who warned it would overload a juvenile justice system that isn’t ready for it.

Moore is expected to sign it.

Here is what the law does. Currently, Maryland automatically charges young people as adults for certain crimes. The new law raises the age threshold from 14 to 16 for most offenses and removes first-degree assault, certain gun crimes, and a list of other serious charges from the automatic adult court track. A judge would retain discretion to transfer individual cases to adult court — but the default starting point for those charges would now be juvenile court.

The bill has been pushed for years as a racial justice and efficiency reform. Supporters note that 85 percent of youth automatically charged as adults ultimately wind up back in juvenile court anyway, after weeks or months in adult facilities. Maryland is also one of the most aggressive states in the country at automatically charging juveniles as adults — critics have noted only Alabama sends more 14- to 17-year-olds to adult court.

Those arguments have merit and deserve fair hearing.

But the concerns raised by prosecutors also deserve more attention than they got. Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates said flatly that the Department of Juvenile Services is “not equipped to deal with these increased violent offenders.” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said the legislature should defer implementation “until the programs are in place.” Multiple prosecutors said the system is already overburdened.

Republicans tried repeatedly to add amendments limiting the reform’s reach — excluding repeat violent offenders, adding specific serious crimes back to the automatic list. Each was voted down. House Minority Whip Jesse Pippy’s request for a one-hour delay so lawmakers could consult with the Department of Legislative Services on the bill’s actual effects was rejected 88-37.

A 17-year-old accused last week of shooting up Myrtle Point Park was cited on the House floor by Del. Matt Morgan of St. Mary’s County, who noted that under the new law, such a defendant would likely begin in juvenile court. His colleagues voted for the bill anyway.

The law takes effect October 1, 2026. Whether the Department of Juvenile Services has the capacity, the staffing, and the programming to handle the increased caseload by that date is an open question — one the legislature did not appear interested in answering before passing the bill.

Maryland’s juvenile crime data over the next two years will be an important test of whether the reform’s supporters or its critics were right. Watch for it.

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