4 days ago
Adult or juvenile murder charges? Here's latest in Clovis teen killing trial
In the Spotlight is a Fresno Bee series that digs into the high-profile local issues that readers care most about. Story idea? Email tips@
Two 16-year-olds in Fresno County were recently accused of the premeditated killing of Clovis teen Caleb Quick and many, including District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp, have called for the teens to face an adult trial.
Whether they will be charged as adults is a significant undertaking that will not likely be decided quickly, according to experts.
Fresno attorney Kathy Bird is the defense attorney for Byron Rangel, who was accused of being the gunman who sought out the 18-year-old Quick on April 23 before shooting him in the head outside of a McDonald's near Willow and Nees avenues. The teen faces a charge of murder and an enhancement for lying in wait.
Also charged in the case was Cassandra Michael, 16, who police said was the getaway driver. She also faces an enhancement as a co-participant in a crime involving a gun. The two 16-year-olds were dating.
The Bee is naming the juvenile defendants after Judge Amythest Freeman on May 14 denied requests from their attorneys to withhold their names, entering them into the public record.
Two-and-half weeks after the fatal shooting, the two Clovis Unified students turned themselves into police in Clovis on May 9.
Rangel's next hearing is June 4, and Michael's is June 18.
The Fresno County District Attorney's Office has made the request to try them as adults, but it's up to a judge to decide.
Multiple attorneys who spoke with the Fresno Bee laid out the process for how the judicial system weighs that request.
The teen must be at least 16 to face an adult court under Proposition 57, which voters passed in 2016. Two years later, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1391 to move the minimum age up to 16 from 14.
The alleged crime must also be an 'enumerated offense,' which basically means a more serious alleged crime like murder, rape, carjacking or robbery at gunpoint.
A judge will hold a transfer hearing in which the prosecutors and defense attorneys make their arguments on why the teen should be moved to an adult court or stay in the juvenile system.
The transfer hearing in juvenile court is much more similar to a juvenile criminal proceeding than a preliminary hearing in adult court is to an adult criminal trial, according to Michael McKneely, a veteran Fresno attorney with experience in homicide trials in both juvenile and adult courts.
'They hear evidence, they hear witnesses and things like that,' he said. 'A transfer hearing is a lot like an actual juvenile trial, because although there are is a focus on the five key criteria, there's also a focus on the factual basis as well.'
He was referring to the five factors a judge weighs in a juvenile transfer hearing:
Totality of the circumstances and seriousness of the crime.
The degree of sophistication of the crime.
The likeliness of rehabilitation of the teen.
Previous history of delinquency.
Success of previous attempts at rehabilitation.
Both Rangel's attorney and Jeff Hammerschmidt, Michael's attorney, described their clients as teens from decent families who had no previous delinquency.
As part of the transfer hearing, juvenile probation officials will be asked to make a recommendation on the transfer. The judge can use it in their decision but is not required to follow the recommendation.
The defense will have the teens evaluated by psychiatrists, including looking into whether they had adverse childhood events that may have led them to act out differently than a well-adjusted teen.
None of this happens quickly.
All of the factors in the case would likely come out during many court hearings over months or longer. A case involving a 17-year-old accused of quadruple homicide in Reedley in January 2024 is ongoing, and the court has not yet determined if he should be tried as an adult.
A decision has also not been made on a 17-year-old accused of killing and dismembering a man in Mendota in April 2024.
Members of the community can grow impatient in the process, and show frustration that the decision takes so long.
McKneely stressed that the public should be patient and allow the system to work to come to a full determination.
'I don't know anybody, outside other than the police or the prosecutors or the defense attorneys, who knows enough about the circumstances of the offense to be able to knowledgeably say whether you know this kid or the girlfriend really are irredeemable,' McKneely said.
The most glaring difference a teen faces in adult court is the severity of the punishment.
As adults, Michael would face 26 years to life for participating in the slaying while Rangel would potentially be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, prosecutors said.
As juveniles, they each face up to seven years of confinement or up until they turn 25, prosecutors said.
Hammerchmidt said the difference between how the courts handle a juvenile case and an adult case are 'absolutely huge.'
The courts in juvenile cases lean heavily on diversion, when the court prescribes treatment or programs to correct a person's actions rather than a jail sentence.
'The purpose of the juvenile court is rehabilitation rather than punishment,' he said. 'Sometimes punishment is part of it but it's less of an emphasis.'
There has been an evolving perspective in California of how the courts treat young people who commit crimes. Prop. 57 and SB 1391 are examples of that.
In 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office took the additional step of not sending any minors to adult court as part of their own policies.
Even 18 can be seen as too young to handle adult consequences. Some science shows that a person's brain does not finish developing until mid- to late 20s, and the Supreme Court made note of that in its decision in Graham vs. Florida in 2010 in which the justices ruled life sentences cannot be given to minors who commit 'non-homicide crime.'
California also holds youth offender parole hearings for anyone younger than 26 when they committed a crime, a law that went into effect with Assembly Bill 1308 in 2018.
'Courts are catching up with brain science,' Bird said.
