The vast majority of juvenile cases diverted from traditional prosecution in King County last month involved low-level misdemeanors that state law required prosecutors to keep out of court, according to new data released by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
Of 114 juvenile cases handled in July, 86 were diverted or otherwise kept out of the traditional court system, the office reported. But prosecutors cautioned against reading those numbers as a sign of leniency on serious crime.
“When everybody hears juvenile crime, they think of the stories that they hear in the news: shootings or robberies or carjackings or really serious crimes,” said Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. “But when you hear the context, which is only one of those was a felony case, and it was non-violent, and the overwhelming majority of those diverted cases were mandatory diversions under state law, it’s a very different picture,” he told “Seattle’s Morning News.”
The only felony diverted in July involved spray-painting a highway wall
State lawmakers have required prosecutors across Washington to divert certain non-violent misdemeanors into programs designed to change young offenders’ behavior rather than route them through the courts, McNerthney said. Class A felonies, gun crimes, carjackings and armed robberies are not eligible for diversion…