Delinquent: Efrain didn’t fire the gun, but was charged with attempted murder, bound over. Should he have been prosecuted as an adult?

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A few monthsไ shy of his 19th birthday, Efrain struggled to wrap his head around how he ended up in an adult prison cell, where he’s now serving three years on attempted murder charges committed as a juvenile.

He traces his devolution to a single day in December 2020, his freshman year in high school. He w🐓as rushing to finish homework be🐼fore Christmas break when his best friend called wanting to play video games. Efrain brushed him off.

The friend would end up tagging along with other teens to an arranܫged drug deal on Cleveland’s West side. There w▨as a fight over the drugs and the teens peeled away as bullets chased them. One round ripped through the back windshield, striking Efrain’s friend in the head, killing him. The boy was 13.

Efrain bla🌟med himself, thinking his friend might still be alive if he hadn’t prioritized homework over hanging out.

“Ever since then, I just lost myself a little bit,” he recalls now. “That’s when everything started ℱunrave🌠ling.”

Efrain is one of more than 50 juvenile offenders – referred to by middle name or pseudonym – who spoke to The Plain Dealer and iccwins188.com about their recent experiences within the Cuyahoga County juvenile justice system, which puts more children behind bars than any other county in Ohio. Their stories, told over six we🔴eks, illustrate the influences that led them to crime, how their behavior escalated from p൩etty misdemeanors to violence, and what barriers delayed or blocked their way out.

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In many cases, the young people at the heart of these stories cycled tꦉhrough numerous attempts at interventions, before eventually committing crimes that sent them to adult court, a process known as bindover. Increasingly, however, youth are becoming adults on their first offense, without receiving any opportunities for rehabilitation.

That’s what happened to Efrain. He was bound over on his first charge, following a non-fatal shooti♚ng he played a role in but did not commit. His case raises questions about the law that lets prosecutors’ charging decisions force kids to bypass the j꧑uvenile justice system and immediately be treated as adults. All without a judge’s input or so much as a hearing on what’s best for the child or public safety.

Escalations

After Efraᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚin’s friend died, he fell into a deep depression. His dad recalls him “moping” around the house for months, but never thought to send him to therapy. Efrain barely ate and noticeably dropped weight. He’d cry if loved ones mentioned the friend’s name. If bullies or rivals did, he’d fight.

He fought a lot.

He already spent most days home alo🃏ne after the pandemic moved schools online, so it was easy to sleep through classes. He was soon failing every subject. Eventually, Efrain skipped school altogether, leaving home to spend time with a new group of friends who taught him how to sell drugs and firearms. If his dad questioned him, he’d lie about where he was going, who he was with and how he was earning money.

Efrain felt desperate to escape his pain. More than once, he remembers staring down the barrel of a gun, taunting the handler to pullꦇ the trigger.

“I feel like if my friend didn’t get shot, I wouldn’t be in🍌to stuff and in the streeඣts,” he says now.

Seven months after burying his best friend, Efrain suffered another blow. His 20-y🔥ear-old brother, Ezekial, was jailed on attempted murder charges.

Ezekial had been in and out of trouble most of Efrain’s life. He’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder andꦰ schizophrenia in eleme꧋ntary school, and his erratic behavior frequently led to violence at home and in the classroom. Charges followed for domestic violence, possessing weed and having a weapon in school, leading to stretches in juvenile jail. But he always came back home.

After the shooting, however, Ezekial pleaded to felonious assault and, in a separate case, aggravated robbery, a deal that sent him to prison for at least seven years. Efrain’s behavior and mental state deteriorated further, and this time, his father noticed. He s𝕴peculated that his older son’s incarceration exacerbated Efrain’s feelings of abandonment from when their mother left them young.

It also created new problems. With the brother behind bars, the people he’d harme🌼d came after Efrain instead. He started getting death threats, so his father sent him out of state to live with an aunt. Efrain says the change in environment helped him, for a while, but sometimes he would still act out, and his aunt would threaten to send him back to Cleveland, which made him fear for his life.

After about ౠa year, he returned home, hoping tꦕhe beef had subsided. It hadn’t.

First, Efrain 🌃says someone shot at him while he was walking on the street. Then, somebody fired at his house. Police noted bullet holes sp꧑read across the storm door and two vehicles parked out front. No one was home at the time of the shooting, but that was apparently the final straw.

Efrain, now 17 and hardened, sought out one of his brother’s friends and the pair went to confront the two men they believed responsible for the drive-by shootings. (Efrain had previously fought with one of the victims at school, the prosecutor’s office said.) Efrain was unarmed whe🃏n they approached the men sitting outside of a home,𒆙 but the friend drew a gun and started firing, striking one of the victims in the chest and the other in the side. Both survived.

Police arrested Efrain on felonious assault chargღes.

Choices

At that point, Efrain’s case could have gone several waᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚys.

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, which makes charging decisions, could have charged him with lesser crimes. He might have qualified𓂃 for diversion or other court programs designed to rehabilitate first-time offenders.

The prosecutor also could have pursued the initial felonious assault charges. In that case, Efrain could have been adjudicated delinquent and faced a range of youth sanctions, from probation to life in juvenile prison – meaning until he turned 21. Or the prosecutor could have asked a judge to exercise discretion – to weigh the facts of the case and Efrain’s life circumstances and determine whether it would be appropriate to charge him as an adult or keep him within reach of the juvenile justice syste✨m’s programs.

The prosecutor might have also sought to indict Efrain as a Serious Youthful Offender, in which case he would have recꦏeived a blended sentence. Efrain would serve the juvenile portion first, but an adult sentence could follow, if he were to reoffend during that period.

All those ෴options would have allowed Efrain at least a shot at reform in the juvenile system, where sanctions and programs are designed to rehabilitate youth who commit crimes.

Instead, the prosecutor added counts for attempted murder, calling Efrain in the shooting and charging him the same as the 20-year-old who fired the gun. The charges triggered aꦫ scenario that forced Efrain into the adult system, without any regard for his lack of criminal history or his potential for rehabilitation.

Juvenile courts were designed with the understanding that kids make mistakes. Their brains are a work-in-progress that are prone to poor choices. An꧋d because of that, the juvenile system b🧜ends toward second chances, with intervention services meant to change a youth’s thoughts and behaviors and, theoretically, prevent them from reoffending – as juveniles or adults.

However,🍌 the law has always contemplated scenarios where kids might commit acts so offensive to the community that they should no longer be considered juveniles. In those cases, teens can be bound over as adults to face adult sanctions, including adult prison.

For nearly a century, all bindover decisions were discretionary. It was up to a judge to consider the totality of a youth’s circumstances – their role in the alleged crime, their homelife, academic performance, prior court involvement an▨d a psychological evaluation. Then, the judge would decide whether to keep them in the juvenile system or send them on to the adult system.

But following a rise of juvenile crime and public demands for stꦛricter punishment, Ohio passed a law in 1996 that paved a more direct pathway to the adult system. It created so-called , which bypass a judicial review, requiring youth in certain cases to be transferred to the adult docket, as long as there’s probable cause they committed the offense.

Now, 16- and 17-year-olds, who are charged with 🌠murder or attempted mur💧der, are automatically bound over to adult court. Other serious felonies, like aggravated robbery or rape, trigger the process too, if the teen used a gun or previously served time in a juvenile prison for high-level felonies.

The law also applies to kids as young as 14, but only🐻 if they’re charged with murder and were previously found delinquent – the juvenile system’s term for guilty – of a high-level felony, for which they served time in youth priso🀅n.

A chi𓂃ld would also be subject to bindover if they come from a state whose l𝔉aws require it, or if they’re convicted of a felony and have been bound over before. “Once an adult, always an adult,” according to the law.

If an ꧂offender’s age or the elements of the crime don’t qualify for a mandatory transfer, prosecutors can still request discre𒁏tionary bindover. But that scenario is less common.

Between 2019 and 2022, Cuyahoga sent 259 youths to the adult system, a Plain Dealer/iccwins188.com analysis found. Close to 60% of them had a mandatory transfer in at least one of their cases.🌸 (Some of the youths were also bound over on discretionary charges in separate cases or may have fallen under the “once an adult, always an adult” provision.)

Efrain was among the mandatory transfers.

ღHe was 17 and accused of attempted murder, so his case was automatically sent to adult court. No second chances.

‘You’re salvageable’

In adult court, Efrain ultimately pleaded guilty to one co﷽unt of attempted murder, a deal that cut his potential prison time in half. But he could still face up to seven years.

At sentencing, Efrain’s attorney, Brant DiChiera with the Cuyahoga County Public Defender’s Office, asked the judge for leniency. Because of the automatic bindover, Efrain had never received interꦺvention services or opportunities for reform. So, while it was now too late to spare him from adult prison, DiChiera argued, the judge could still reduce the impact.

“He’s at a crossroads,” DiChiera told the judge. “He can be rehabilitated. There is hope in the fu😼ture for this young man.”

Efrain had already shown flashes of that potential while in juvenile lockup, w🌸here youth are held until they’re convicted as adult꧒s, or their cases are otherwise closed.

Early on, he was prone to fighting🌸, especially while coincidentally housed next to the peoplꦐe he says were involved in his best friend’s unsolved shooting death two years earlier. They taunted him again. He fought back.

“I lost it and just started punching every single one of them,” he recalls. “We were fighting back-to-back for months until people started getting moved💖😼.”

Around that same time, Efrain’s house was shot up again. This time, police sa🐷id the bullets went 🎃through the front door and windows.

But after they were separated, Efrain straightened out. He completed the credits needed to graduate high school. He became active in religious groups and started working on the cleaning crew. Soon, he was moved to low-securဣity housing reserved for the best-behaved offenders.

Common Pleas Judge Deborah Turner was sympathetic. She handed down the minimum sentence – three years prison – noting Efrain’s lack of criminal history and past traumas. (Turner later sentenced Efrain’s codefendant, who fired the gun,ꦕ to eight and a half years.)

♏“It’s a sad day, because although you’re 18, you’re still a child,” Turner told him. “Y🐼ou’re salvageable. You’re salvageable because you’re young.”

If Efrain serves the ♊full sentence, he’ll bᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚe released a month before his 21st birthday. If he demonstrates good behavior, he could be released later this year, at 19, .

The sentence was the best-case scenario for Efrain, under the circumstances, but his attorney, DiChiera, still considers it a waste. The juvenile s🔥ystem can hold offenders unt♓il they’re 21, meaning Efrain could have served the same amount of time in youth lockup, he says.

Instead of being mixed with adult offenders and placed in adult programs, Efrain could have received services designed for juveniles, like youth counseling. He could have gotten a high school diploma, instead of now seeking a GED. And he could have exited the system with some protections, instead of now being “saddled with (an adult) record he⛎ can never have sealed or expunged.”

If public safety required 🐷Efrain’s inca🅘rceration, DiChiera says, “he would have been off the street either way.”

Collateral sanctions

Efrain’s father still bristles over the injustice of it. While he believes the juvenile system gave his oldest son a fair chance at rehabilitation prior to his adult incarceration, he feels it robbed his youngest of the ♎same opportunity.

Before the shooting, he’d🐲 seen Efrain taking steps to give his life more structure and better himself. Efrain had applied for the Marines and received a conditional offer ﷺto begin boot camp after high school – “I always felt that saving people was for me,” Efrain says of that decision.

His felony record now makes joining the military nearly impossible. It also cr⛎eates roadblocks to other employment opportunities, as well as housing.

“I feel ﷺthey messed up his life,” Efrain’s father says.

Efrain didn’t see it that way, initially. His first week in adult prison, he was hopeful he could turn his life around. He vowed to make the most of his time in ꦰprison and be ready to re-enter societ♈y as an adult.

He talked of seeking counseling for the first time and celebrated an opportunity to get his GED – he never would have finished high school if not for his incarceration, he said. He still wanted to apply for the military after his release, but he was also making plans to try barber schooᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚl, if he’s n💎ot accepted.

“When I get back home, I will have everything ready, like I didn’t miss any ౠtime,” he says a൲t the time.

With each passing month, however, his mood and outlook began to change. Efrain was calling home less, and when he di🍷d, he seemed despondent. His father says he would 🌱complain about the poor living conditions and how much longer he had to stay.

During that period, Efrain stopped communicating with reporters entirely, going silent for months. Then, in February, shortly💎 before his 19th birthday, he sent an email through the jail’s messaging syst🅺em.

“I’𝓀m sorry I haven’t been calling, I’ve just been down lately,” he wrote. “I’ve been thinking about going home and I’ve ju🤡st been losing hope, you know…it just gets tiring.”

Coming tomorrow: While most youth touch the system multiple times before being bound over as adults, a growing number are first-time offenders, like Efrain and 16-year-old Edward, who was transferred following a carjacking. Edward is now serving up to eight years in adult prison – “I made a mistake when I was sixteen, and now it’s going to haunt me for the remainder of my life,” he says.)

Data Editor Rich Exner and data reporter Zachary Smith contributed to this report.

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