Today, Governor Brown signed into law SB 1391. SB 1391 repeals the authority of a district attorney to make a motion to transfer a minor from juvenile court to adult court in a case in which a minor is alleged to have committed a specified serious offense when he or she was 14 or 15 years of age, unless the individual was not apprehended prior to the end of juvenile court jurisdiction.

This law modifies the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016 (Prop 57) which allowed the district attorney to make a motion to transfer a minor from juvenile court to adult in a case in which a minor is alleged to have committed a felony when he or she was 16 years of age or older OR in a case in which a specified serious offense is alleged to have been committed by a minor when he or she was 14 or 15 years of age.

In signing this bill, Governor Brown stated “There is a fundamental principle at state here: whether we want a society which at least a attempts to reform the youngest offenders before consigning them to adult prisons where their likelihood of becoming a lifelong criminal is so much higher”.