North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed a bill Friday that would have mandated that more minors accused of serious crimes automatically be tried as an adult in court.
As it currently stands, some criminal cases involving youth defendants may remain in juvenile proceedings.
House Bill 834 passed the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support before the veto from Cooper, who sided with critics of the measure who warned the changes scale back the provisions of the 2019 “Raise the Age” law that ended a mandate that children of ages 16 and 17 be tried in the adult criminal justice system.
The opposition to automatically prosecuting children in adult court was considered a way to help more young people avoid public, lifetime criminal records for one-time mistakes, while also giving them access to youth-centered resources within the juvenile system, which does not make records public.
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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would have mandated that more minors accused of serious crimes automatically be tried in adult court. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
“I remain concerned that this new law would keep some children from getting treatment they need while making communities less safe,” Cooper wrote in his veto message.
The American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a letter to the governor ahead of his veto that prosecuting children as adults “causes significant harm to young people and does nothing to address the underlying causes of youth crime.”
“The juvenile justice system requires far more…
