Washington Supreme Court Majority Clarifies 'Juvenile Strikes' in 'Three Strikes Law' for Sentencing Courts, Persistent Offenders
“[T]he Supreme Court held that Washington’s mandatory ‘Three Strikes’ law may be applied to childhood offenses, and that crimes committed by a child may count as automatic ‘strikes’ toward a life without parole sentence,” Jan Trasen, of the Washington Appellate Project, said in statement. “This disregards evidence-based [Washington state] precedent that ‘children are different’ from adults, and that they must be sentenced differently. As the dissenting justices said, ‘A juvenile charged and sentenced in adult court does not magically become an adult because of the venue in which the case is resolved. Children are different and age matters.'”