Teens will be teens: N.C. should treat under-18s as minors in court

Sometimes teens get into trouble.

And that's life.

Sometimes it's just over small things like staying out past curfew or falling asleep in algebra.

Sometimes it can be more serious. But it's still important to keep age in mind when we hold teens accountable.

But North Carolina automatically tries 16- and 17-year-old criminal defendants as adults.

A bill introduced in the N.C. General Assembly on April 13 seeks to define any defendant younger than 18 as a juvenile.

This Youth Accountability Act would require that defendants under the age of 18 be tried in juvenile courts and allow criminal offenses committed by juveniles to be expunged from their records upon turning 18.

The bill will give teens a chance to learn from their mistakes.

Let's face it not everyone makes the greatest decisions in high school.

It is unfair to have youth offenses haunting people into adulthood.

Furthermore teens under the age of 18 don't have adult legal rights.

It's not fitting for a teen who cannot vote or serve on a jury to be held responsible for a crime the same way an adult with full rights would be.

Even with this bill teens under the age of 18 charged with serious crimes or motor vehicle law violations would still qualify to be treated as adults in a court of law.

So if you're 17 and get caught at 1 a.m. running over your neighbor's mailbox with your SUV you still might be out of luck.

But the bill offers an understandable amount of forgiveness for more trivial offenses like certain types of drug possession or vandalism.

These crimes can be committed in the heat of the moment — or under peer pressure — when teens are in high school.

Granted there would be an added financial cost that would come from including all defendants under the age of 18 in the juvenile court system.

But this bill gives troubled kids a chance to change their behavior before they acquire any permanent offenses on their records.

Perhaps this bill is slightly idealistic but North Carolina is right to treat teenagers like teenagers.

We should give teens a chance to actually become adults before holding them to adult standards.