Florida Supreme Court recognizes children convicted as adults deserve meaningful opportunity for release

The Florida Supreme Court confirmed this week what experts and parents have long known: Children are fundamentally different from adults.

The state’s highest court issued decisions this week recognizing that children – even those who have committed the most serious offenses – deserve the chance to show they have changed for the better instead of being locked up for life. With this decision, children currently serving sentences of life without parole now have the opportunity to demonstrate they have been rehabilitated, and deserve to be released.

Recognizing this fact is critically important in Florida.

Far too many children are prosecuted as adults in this state – over 10,000 in the last five years, all brought into the adult system without a judge’s input. That’s because the state largely puts the decision of trying a child as an adult in the hands of prosecutors.

The Florida Supreme Court’s decisions confirm that now is the time for the Legislature to put an end to prosecutors’ unchecked power. The majority of these children are nonviolent offenders, yet so many of them receive adult felony convictions and overly harsh sentences that damage them for life.

Several bills are currently pending in the Florida Legislature to reform this process, known as “direct file.” It is time for the state to recognize that an adult jail is no place for a child.

Tania Galloni is the managing attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Florida office.