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Colorado Supreme Court Number 05-SC-593 (Colorado Supreme Court 2006)
In 1997, at age 16, Gary Flakes was charged with murder. Although he was a juvenile, Gary was charged in adult court under Colorado’s direct file statute. This statute allows prosecutors to file charges against juveniles charged with certain serious violent offenses in adult court without providing them an opportunity to challenge adult court jurisdiction.
When Gary went to trial, however, the jury acquitted him of first degree murder, the charge that made him eligible for direct filing in adult court. The jury instead convicted him of accessory and criminally negligent homicide, crimes that do not qualify under Colorado’s direct file statute for adult prosecution. Nonetheless, Gary was sentenced as an adult to 15 years in state prison. He never had an opportunity to contest the prosecutor’s original decision to try him as an adult.
Under the existing sentencing scheme in Colorado, adolescents like Gary must be given adult sentences based on the prosecutor’s original decision to directly file in adult court, even if the juvenile is ultimately convicted of charges that would make him ineligible for adult prosecution.
In a friends of the court brief filed on June 5, 2006, the National Center for Youth Law Center joined several other child advocacy organizations urging the Colorado Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeals decision in Gary’s case. Amici argue that the Colorado sentencing scheme that allowed Gary to be sentenced as an adult under Colorado’s direct file statute, even though he was ultimately acquitted of charges that made him ineligible for adult prosecution under the statute, violates due process, equal protection and the separation of powers doctrine. The brief argues that Colorado’s statutory scheme permits different penalties for identical conduct without rational justification and provides for adult sentences for some offenders, like Gary, but not others convicted of the same level and class of felonies. The brief also reviews the social science research relied upon by the United States in Roper v. Simmons, to show the importance of adolescent characteristics in determining criminal penalty. Amici argue that Colorado’s direct file statute violates the principles enunciated in Roper because it mandates adult sentences without regard to these adolescent characteristics.
On February 26, 2007, the Colorado Supreme Court issued it opinion which it later modified on March 19, 2007. The Court held that the direct file statute limits mandatory adult sentences to the offenses enumerated in the direct file statute. The Court rejected Flakes’ constitutional challenge premised on the claim that the direct file statute mandates an adult sentence for convictions on charges not enumerated in the statute and held that the direct file statute is constitutional.
The Juvenile Law Center is counsel for all the amici groups that, in addition to the National Center for Youth Law, include the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, the Northeast Regional Juvenile Defender Center, Pendulum Juvenile Justice, the Southern Juvenile Defender Center, the Center on Children and Families, the National Juvenile Defender Center, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Counsel: Kim Dvorchack, Gary Flakes; Marsha Levick, Laval Miller-Wilson, and Vincent Herman, Juvenile Law Center; Pat Arthur and Bryn Martyna, NCYL.
Updated April 2, 2010
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