In California, a juvenile charged with special circumstances murder who is alleged to have personally committed a homicide of the victim must be prosecuted in adult court if he or she was 14 or older at the time of the offense. Welfare & Institutions Code section 602(b)(1). Also pursuant to the United States Supreme Court case of Roper v. Simmons (2005) 543 U.S. 551, the court held that the death penalty was unconstitutional as applied to individuals who committed offense before the age of 18. A juvenile charged with certain juvenile law sex offenses must also be prosecuted in adult court if the juvenile was 14 older at the time of the alleged crime and the Juvenile Prosecutor alleged one of the circumstances stated in Penal Code section 668.61(d) or (c) (One strike law). Welfare and Institutions Code section 602(b)(2). Having an experienced Juvenile Attorney to review your child’s case is very important. When a child is prosecuted as an adult, it generally means the Juvenile Prosecutor believes the child is looking at a state prison commitment. Interestingly, the Ventura County Star newspaper reports in an article dated February 17, 2008, that juveniles tried as adults are up 170%.  The Star notes, ” proponents argue that juveniles should be punished for their crimes, but the law must take into consideration that a youngster’s brain isn’t fully developed. State Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said that a teenager’s brain isn’t completely developed, and a teen’s impulse control, planning and critical thinking are still not yet fully matured. Yee’s spokesman, Adam Keigman, said Yee has introduced a bill to do away with sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. The bill was supposed to go to the Senate for a vote in January, but Yee postponed that action in hopes of getting the necessary two-thirds support later this year. Yee believes that a sentence of 25 years to life is fair, and it gives some hope to youngsters that, if they behave in prison, they will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years, said Keigman. There are 232 inmates in the state prison system who committed crimes as juveniles, were prosecuted as adults and sentenced to life in prison without parole, said Seth Unger, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. Unger said he didn’t have the breakdown on how many of those inmates were convicted in Ventura County.”