Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed dozens of bills into law in Annapolis, including one that eliminates the practice of automatically charging juveniles as adults in a wide category of crimes.
Under the Youth Charging Reform Act, teenagers younger than 18 can still be charged as adults in cases of first-degree murder and rape.
At the bill-signing ceremony, Maryland General Assembly Senate President Bill Ferguson said, “Here in Maryland, we charge more children as adults than every other state, other than Alabama. This bill will change that,” he said.
Ferguson said in some instances, Maryland charged 14-year-olds as adults, “for cases, that almost always, almost always,” he emphasized, “ended back into the juvenile court anyway.”
Ferguson said the legislation will keep cases “in the right court from the start, which actually, and by the data, makes us safer and is better for those young people.”
While the bill was celebrated at the bill-signing at the Maryland State House, Ivan Bates, the president of the Maryland State’s Attorneys Association wrote in a statement, “violent juvenile crime continues to grow out of control because the Department of Juvenile Services is ill-equipped to handle these young, violent repeat offenders.”
Bates, who testified in opposition to the bill, added, “sending these violent offenders back to the juvenile system and giving them a timeout is not the answer to such egregiously violent crimes.”
Other bills signed into law included the “Joanne C. Benson Maryland Phone Free Schools Act.” The law requires school systems to create “bell-to-bell” phone policies at all elementary, middle and high schools by the 2027-2028 school year.
Also, a housing bill that was passed is designed to add to the state’s housing stock by barring local jurisdictions form collecting development impact fees or excise taxes on residential projects until after construction is finished. The intent is to ease any upfront barriers to building more new homes.
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