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 mo🀅nths 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 was rushing to finish homework before Christmas break whe🥂n 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 arranged drug deal on Cleveland’s West side. There was a fight over the drugs and the teens peeled away as bullets chased them. One round ripped thr𓄧ough the back windshield, striking Efrain’s friend in the head, killing him. The boy was 13.

Efrain blamed himself, thinking his friend might still be alive if he hadn’t priori꧋tized homework over hanging out.

“Ever since then, I just lost myself a littlꦚe bit,” he recalls now. “That’s when everything started unraveling.”

Efrain is one of more than 50 juvenile offenders – referred to by middle name or pseudonym – who spoke to The Plain Dealer and iccwins888.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 weeks, illustrate the influences that led them to crime, how their behavior ওescalated from petty 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 st▨ories cycled through 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, fol🦂lowing a non-fatal shooting 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 juvenile 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 Efrain’s frie🐎nd 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 alone 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 goingඣ, who he was with and how he was earning mo🐼ney.

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

“I feel like if my friend didn’t get shot, I wouldn’t be into stuff and in 🌸the str🥀eets,” he says now.

Seven months after burying his 🌳best friend, Efrain suffered another blow. His 20-year-old brother, Ezekial𒁏, 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 and schizophrenia in elementary school, and his erra⛎tic behavior f๊requently 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 felonio🔯us 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 speculated that his older son’s inc♈arceration 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 harmed came after Efrain instead. Heဣ started getting death threats, so hꦛis 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 a year, he returned home, hoping the beef had su🐼bsided. It hadn’t.

First, E🐈frain says someone shot at him while he was walking on the street. Then, somebody fired at his house. Police noted bullet holes spread 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 responsiꦰble for the drive-by shootings. (Efrain had previously fought with one of the victims at school, the prosecutor’s office said.) Efrain was unarmed when they approached the men sitting outside of a home, 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 felonioജus assault cha▨rges.

Choices

At that point, Efrainဣ’s case could have gone sever🤡al ways.

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, which makes charging decisions, co🐟uld have charged him with lesser crimes. He might have qualified 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 weig🌃h 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 system’s programs.

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

All𒉰 those options would have allowed Efrain at least a shot at reform in the juvenile system𒁏, 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 a 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. And because of that, the juvenile system bends toward second chances, with intervention services meaඣnt to ch⭕ange 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 acꦉts 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 and 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 stricter 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 murder, are automatically bound over to adult court. Other serious felonies, like aggravated robbery or rape, trigge🔯r the process too, if the teen used a gun or previously served timღe 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 previousl꧒y found delinquent – the juvenile system’s term for guilty – of a high-level felon♔y, for which they served time in youth prison.

A child would also be s﷽ubject to bindover if they come from a sta🔜te whose laws 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 elemen𓆉ts of the crime don’t qualify for a mandatory transfer, prosecutors can still request discretionary bindover. But that scenario is less common.

Between 2019 and 2022, Cuyahoga sent 259 youths to the adult system, a Plain Dealer/iccwins888.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.

He 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 count of attempted murder, a deal that cut his potential prison tim♐e in half. But he coul🧸d 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. Becꦬause of the automatic bindover, Efrain had never received intervention services or opportunities for reform. So, while it was now too late to spare him from adult prison, DiChiera arg✅ued, the judge could still reduce the impact.

🃏“He’s at a crossroads,” DiChiera told the judge. “He can be rehabilitated. There is hope in th🃏e future for this young man.”

Efrain had already shown flashes of that potenti🌸al while in juvenile lockup, where youth are held until they’re convicted as adults, or their cases are otherwise closed.

Early on, he was prone to fighting, especially while coincid𓆉entally housed next to the people 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 ju🌸st 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 s🤪hot up again. This time, police said 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, h💙e was moved to low-security housing reserved for the be🍒st-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, to eight and a half years.)

“It’s a sad day, because although you’re 18, you’re still a child,💫” ꦕTurner told him. “You’re salvageable. You’re salvageable because you’re young.”

If Efrain serves the full sentence, he’ll be released a month before his 21st birthday. If he demonstraܫtes 🍸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 system can hold offenders until 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 dipl🌌oma, instead of now seeking a GED. And he could have exited the system with some protections, instead of now being “s🌟addled with (an adult) record he can never have sealed or expunged.”

I🅷f public safety required Efrain’s incarceration, DiChiera says, “he would have been off the street either way.”

Collateral sanctions

Efrain’s father still bristle൲s 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 structꦍure and better himself. Efrain had applied for the Marines and received a conditional offer to 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 ಌnearly impossible. It also creates ro💙adblocks to other employment opportunities, as well as housing.

“I feel they messed up his life,” E🔯frain’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.ꦕ He vowed to make the most of his time in prison and be re♔ady to re-enter society as an adult.

He talked ไof seeking counseling for the first time and celebrated an opportunity to get h⛄is 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 school, if he’s not accepted.

“When I get back home, I will have everything ready, like I didn’t miss any time,”🍸 he say𒊎s at the time.

With each passing month, however, his mood and outlook began to change. Efrain was calling home less, and when he did, he seemed despondent.ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ 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 th🐟rough the jail’s messaging system.

“I’m sorry I💙 haven’t been calling, I’ve just been down lately,” he wrote. “I’ve been thinking about going home and I’ve just been losing hope, you know…it just ge👍ts 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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