Wisconsin Court of Appeals holds that attributes of youth must be considered in reverse-waiver decisions

By Alexandria Staubach

The Court of Appeals has found the state statute controlling transfer of a child’s homicide case to juvenile court unconstitutional because it fails to consider the unique attributes of youth.
 
Counsel for Noah Mann-Tate has been fighting Mann-Tate’s adult status since he was charged in adult criminal court for the intentional murder of his mother in January of 2023, when he was just 10 years old.
 
Wisconsin law developed in the early 1990s requires any intentional homicide case to be charged in adult criminal court if the juvenile is at least 10 years old. Proceeding in adult court can only be changed by the statutory “reverse waiver” legal procedure governing when a youth can be transferred from the adult system into the juvenile system.
 
The Court of Appeals found that the statute violates due process because it does not provide for consideration of the distinctive attributes of youth recognized in U.S. Supreme Court case law.

Geenen

Judge Sara J. Geenen wrote for the District 1 panel, joined by Chief Judge Maxine White and Judge Joseph Donald.
 
Wisconsin statutes on reverse waiver require the youth charged in adult court to prove three factors more likely than not before the trial court can transfer the case to juvenile court: 1) whether the defendant can ultimately receive adequate treatment in the adult criminal justice system, 2) the seriousness of the offense and whether reverse waiver will depreciate that seriousness, and 3) whether retaining jurisdiction will undermine the goal of deterring the juvenile and other juveniles from committing the charged offense.
 
Mann-Tate’s constitutional argument centered on the fact that several U.S. Supreme Court cases emphasized differences between adults and juveniles in the criminal justice system. 

Those cases, decided a decade after Wisconsin decided to send 10-year-old defendants to adult criminal court, were based on the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and distinguished juveniles from adults for sentencing purposes.
 
Mann-Tate argued those distinctions are not relevant solely to questions regarding cruel and unusual punishment, and the Court of Appeals agreed.
 
Geenen wrote that unique attributes of youth include the youth’s age as it relates to immaturity and inability to appreciate risks and consequences; the youth’s home and family life; the full context of the events and the extent to which the youth participated in the criminal conduct; the effect the defendant’s youthfulness on the ability to navigate the criminal justice process; the impact of family and peer pressure; and the possibility of rehabilitation.
 
“Without consideration of these characteristics,” wrote Geenen, the current law violates due process because it does not provide a meaningful opportunity for a juvenile to prove that he or she is not one of the rare and unfortunate cases that warrant treating the juvenile as having the same culpability as an adult.”
 
“This is a big decision,” said WJI Executive Director Margo Kirchner. “Advocates have argued for years that preteens and even up to 17-year-olds belong in the juvenile justice system.” (See this coverage of a June 2024 press conference highlighting Mann-Tate's case.)
 
"The Court of Appeals has now recognized that children are different than adults when it comes to criminal charges, as the Supreme Court has said. The Legislature should follow suit and raise the age of adult-court jurisdiction. We need to follow the science on these cases,” Kirchner said.
 
Geenen last year also ruled in favor of expanded discovery protections for juvenile defendants in reverse waiver hearings.

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