Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203150171
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Melvin E. Mike is only 15, but he became an adult - at least in the eyes of the law - when he was arrested a second time on charges of dealing crack cocaine.
Mike is among a growing number of Roanoke juveniles to be tried as adults on crack charges.
Usually, a juvenile is tried as an adult only if the charge is especially serious, such as murder, or if the youth has an extensive record that has exhausted all options in the juvenile court.
But as crack becomes more entrenched in Roanoke's drug culture, the court system is seeing a new breed of defendants - kids too young to drive who are facing their second charge of dealing the highly addictive drug.
"You have a situation now where crack has been around for a while, so you're going to have more juveniles coming around with a second charge," said Regional Drug Prosecutor Melvin Hill.
He said the growing number of cases to be transferred to Roanoke Circuit Court for adult trials is not a result of any beefed-up efforts, but simply the system's way of reacting to an evolving drug problem that is claiming younger repeat offenders.
"If the person has already gone through the juvenile system and that has not worked, then obviously he needs to be treated as an adult," Hill said.
Currently, only a handful of juvenile cases are pending before the Circuit Court. But as recently as two years ago, such transfers were practically unheard of. And court officials are worried the numbers will grow.
"There's no question that we are seeing more of these cases," said Philip Trompeter, a Roanoke Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge who also heads the valley's Drug and Alcohol Abuse Council.
More than any other drug, crack's double-edged seduction - a promise of easy money to sellers and a strong grip on addicted users - is luring Roanoke's "down and desperate" youths, Trompeter said.
"Drug traffickers are hitting on a younger population and are sucking them in," he said.
A crowd that had gathered on 11th Street Northwest the night of last Aug. 19 scattered quickly when someone began to yell: "Vice! Vice!"
Fleeing from the approaching police, 15-year-old Melvin Mike ducked into a nearby grocery store. Vice officers said they followed him inside and saw the youth place a plastic bag containing 17 "rocks" of crack on a shelf.
Mike then slipped out of the store, police testified last week during his trial in Roanoke Circuit Court, but he was arrested a few minutes later.
A short time after his arrest, Mike - who in 1990 was placed on probation for his first charge of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute - had a question for police.
"What kind of time can I get for this?" he wanted to know, according to court records.
Perhaps more than he bargained for. Although a jury convicted Mike last week of simple possession instead of possession with intent to distribute, he still faces up to 10 years in prison. That is a much more severe disposition than he would have faced if his case had remained in Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
In ordering that Mike be tried as an adult, Trompeter noted that Mike apparently had not taken juvenile court too seriously. He also was convicted in juvenile court of assault and attempted robbery after his first cocaine charge.
"Unless the defendant is dealt with in an arena which he believes to be serious about stopping this conduct, then tragic results may befall this young man (as has occurred on numerous occasions in this community to young men similar in age and circumstance)," Trompeter wrote in the order.
In Virginia, 15 is the youngest age at which a juvenile can be tried as an adult. In determining whether a juvenile case should be transferred to Circuit Court, two criteria are considered: the nature of the crime and whether the youth can still benefit from the rehabilitative emphasis of the juvenile court.
Once a case is transferred, trial as an adult does not necessarily mean sentencing as an adult.
Unlike jury trials that involve people 18 or older, the jury that heard Mike's case did not recommend a sentence. That task will be left to a judge.
Although Mike faces the possibility of an adult sentence, the judge could also choose to sentence him as a juvenile - which includes options of probation, close supervision or detention in a juvenile home.
But unlike juvenile court, where someone's record disappears after he turns 18, youths convicted in Circuit Court have felony records to follow them for the rest of their lives.
In determining punishment, Hill said factors such as the amount of drugs involved and the defendant's prior record are considered. "It would depend on the particular case," he said.
More than most people, Jeff Rudd has seen the issue from both sides.
As the former regional drug prosecutor, Rudd is now in private practice and often defends the same type of people he prosecuted not long ago.
Rudd agrees that since he left the office in March 1991, there has been an increase in the number of juvenile repeat offenders. "It's a natural evolution of the crack market in the Roanoke Valley," he said.
He acknowledges that prosecutors have "plenty of ammunition" in asking that juveniles be tried as adults on a second cocaine charge.
"It's not murder, but it's very serious, and it has far-reaching implications," Rudd said. "Possession of cocaine with intent to distribute does not affect just one person; it's going to affect 20 people" who buy the drug, he said.
"On the other hand, we run the risk of losing that person forever" when a juvenile is treated as an adult, Rudd said.
"In reality, they are not adults, no matter how infatuated they may be with the power that is associated with crack cocaine.
"The law of survival dictates that when you put a 16-year-old in a prison environment with adults, they're going to find themselves in a tense and taxing situation because of their age."
In those cases, Rudd said, the juvenile is likely to leave incarceration as a more hardened criminal than when he entered.
The lawyer said an overburdened juvenile court system needs to devote more resources to alternative sentences, such as a special program for youthful offenders and the new boot-camp prison approach.
by CNB