WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) — Kansas prosecutors cannot try a 14-year-old as an adult for a killing committed at age 13, the state Court of Appeals ruled Friday in a decision that limits when young teens can be moved into adult criminal court.
A three-judge panel upheld a decision by a Butler County magistrate judge who refused to authorize adult prosecution for two youths, identified in court records as I.H. and A.W. The pair were 13 when they allegedly took part in the 2023 brutal murder of 93-year-old Joanne Johnson in Augusta. They turned 14 by the time first-degree murder charges were filed in August 2024.
Writing for the panel, Judge Angela Pickering said Kansas law “does not grant the State such authority” and held that a juvenile can only be prosecuted as an adult if they were at least 14 at the time of the crime, not simply 14 when charges are filed or when the state asks to move the case.
The ruling interprets K.S.A. 38-2347, the statute that governs when prosecutors can seek to have a juvenile tried as an adult. That law states that “no juvenile less than 14 years of age shall be prosecuted as an adult,” but does not spell out whether the age cutoff is measured at the time of the offense or later in the court process.
Prosecutors argued the state could move to adult court “at any time after commencement of proceedings,” so long as the youth is at least 14 when the motion is filed. The appeals court rejected that reading, finding the statute ambiguous and saying the state’s interpretation would lead to “absurd results” and render recent juvenile justice reforms meaningless.
Under the state’s view, the panel noted, prosecutors could simply wait until a 10-, 11- or 13-year-old suspect turned 14 and then seek adult prosecution for a crime committed years earlier, even though lawmakers in 2016 raised the minimum age for adult prosecution from 12 to 14 and removed presumptions that many older teens should automatically be treated as adults.
“In this context, the statutory changes … do not reflect an intention to authorize prosecution of a juvenile as an adult based on the juvenile’s age at the filing of the motion,” Pickering wrote. Instead, she said, Kansas has a “historical tradition” of tying the juvenile code to the offender’s age “when the crimes were committed.”
The decision means I.H. and A.W. will remain in the juvenile system if they are prosecuted, where potential confinement generally ends by age 22 1/2, instead of facing a possible life sentence in the adult system.
It was not immediately clear Friday whether Butler County prosecutors or the Kansas attorney general’s office would ask the Kansas Supreme Court to review the decision.
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