CRC - 2017                                                  P 73
       
       
        
       By Commissioner Coxe
       
       coxeh-00096-17                                          201773__
    1                         A proposal to amend                       
    2         Section 15 of Article I of the State Constitution to
    3         require circuit court review before a state attorney
    4         may pursue prosecution of a child as an adult in
    5         criminal court.
    6          
    7  Be It Proposed by the Constitution Revision Commission of
    8  Florida:
    9  
   10         Section 15 of Article I of the State Constitution is
   11  amended to read:
   12                              ARTICLE I                            
   13                        DECLARATION OF RIGHTS                      
   14         SECTION 15. Prosecution for crime; offenses committed by
   15  children.—
   16         (a) No person shall be tried for capital crime without
   17  presentment or indictment by a grand jury, or for other felony
   18  without such presentment or indictment or an information under
   19  oath filed by the prosecuting officer of the court, except
   20  persons on active duty in the militia when tried by courts
   21  martial.
   22         (b) It is the policy of this state that, because children
   23  are more neurologically, psychologically, and emotionally
   24  underdeveloped than adults, the state attorney must petition the
   25  circuit court for approval if he or she decides to pursue
   26  prosecution of a child as an adult in criminal court rather than
   27  in juvenile court. The circuit court must consider the
   28  differences in the development of adults and children in
   29  determining whether to approve a state attorney’s decision to
   30  prosecute a child as an adult in criminal court. When authorized
   31  by law, a child as therein defined may be charged with a
   32  violation of law as an act of delinquency instead of crime and
   33  tried without a jury or other requirements applicable to
   34  criminal cases. Any child so charged shall, upon demand made as
   35  provided by law before a trial in a juvenile proceeding, be
   36  tried in an appropriate court as an adult. A child found
   37  delinquent shall be disciplined as provided by law.