CLEVELAND, Ohio – John stands nearly six feet in cleats, with long, thick arms, making it easy to understand why college football coaches showed interest.
Not long ago, he was a senior wide receiver at a suburban high school with strong route-running skills and aspirations to play at the next level. But after that 2022 season, his life dramatically changed.
Last March, at 17, John was accused of shooting into a Cleveland Heights house. A bullet flew into a bedroom occupied by two teens, police reported. No one was hurt. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office charged John with several felonies, including felonious assault, and requested to transfer him to adult court, a process called bindover.
He formally denied – juvenile court’s term for pleading not guilty – committing the shooting, and his case is pending.
“Everything happens for a reason, but–” John pauses. It’s not easy to make sense or find meaning in the situation John finds himself in and how ruinous it might be for his future.
John is one of more than 50 juvenile offenders – referred to by middle name or pseudonym – who spoke to The Plain Dealer/cleveland.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 influences that led them to crime, escalations from petty misdemeanors to violent acts and barriers that delayed or blocked their way out, sometimes despite interventions.
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Last week, we explored the controversial subject of mandatory bindover. That’s the process of sending kids who are accused of committing the most severe offenses straight into the adult system, without the benefit of a juvenile judge’s input.
This week, we focus on the process of discretionary bindover – when prosecutors request the transfer of a kid to the adult docket, and the decision is left in the hands of a judge. Some advocates argue that no child should be sent to adult court without the approval of a juvenile judge, who considers the full scope of the kid’s life and prospects for rehabilitation. But the approach is not without its complexities. Making an informed decision about a youth’s case takes time. And when a kid is left languishing – rudderless and without treatment for months, while waiting for a judge’s decision – more bad things can happen.
John, unfortunately, is our example.
John’s shooting charges didn’t qualify for mandatory bindover. Prosecutors felt the severity still warranted adult sanctions, and they asked a juvenile judge to agree.
Unlike mandatory bindovers, which are required for juveniles in certain situations involving high-level felony charges, discretionary bindovers can be requested for any juvenile as young as 14, who is accused of a felony. The judge decides whether transfer is appropriate, based on an investigation into the child’s social history, education and family situation, as well as a mental health examination by the court’s diagnostic clinic.
The judge uses that information to weigh factors for and against transfer to the adult docket, during what’s called an amenability hearing. If the judge determines the child is not amenable to care and rehabilitation within the juvenile system – which runs until an offender’s 21st birthday – and if public safety might require adult sanctions, they transfer the case to adult court.
If transferred, youth face the traditional criminal process and adult sanctions, including the possibility of adult prison. If they are deemed amenable, however, they remain in juvenile court, where, if found delinquent, they could face probation, youth prison, or something in between.
Many believe the discretionary process is a fairer form of juvenile justice than mandatory bindover.
“It’s like a scalpel; it’s individualized, witnesses are brought in, there’s evidentiary hearings and lots of structure,” says Hunter Hurst, director of the Pittsburgh-based National Center for Juvenile Justice. The organization is the research arm of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, which was founded, incidentally, by a Cuyahoga County judge in 1937.
Juvenile judges are considered experts on youths, while “prosecutors may be more political,” Hurst adds, speaking on behalf of himself and not his organization. In mandatory bindover situations, “We’re giving them the power to make this really awesome decision about an awful situation with a 10th or 11th grader whose mind is still developing.”
In practice
A Plain Dealer/cleveland.com analysis of amenability orders between 2019 and 2022 found that, in Cuyahoga, judges were asked to consider discretionary bindover in 407 cases.
In 226 of those cases, or 56%, judges granted the bindover, transferring a total 146 juveniles to the adult system, the analysis showed. (Numbers do not match because juveniles can be transferred on more than one case.) The remaining cases were either withdrawn or denied.
Now, a judge would decide John’s future, too.
While there are advantages to evaluating the life circ*mstances of each juvenile before deciding how to prosecute them, there are drawbacks, too. The thorough investigations involved in the discretionary bindover process can extend for months, leaving kids in a state of uncertainty, straddling the juvenile and adult justice systems.
Unlike kids who spend an average 225 days awaiting bindover in juvenile jail, John was released to home detention. But life was still challenging. He wasn’t allowed to leave home for anything but work – not even to take out the trash, he says. He finished high school online.
His judge, Kristin Sweeney, had said his performance back in his community would reflect his commitment to reform and could factor into whether he stays in juvenile court or is sent to adult court. In July, he was accused of a new crime – victim intimidation – for posting case material on Instagram. But Sweeney kept John at home. He took her advice and deactivated his social media accounts.
John vowed to make the most of his time in home detention, while he awaited his amenability hearing.
His ankle monitor beeped when the power was low, interrupting sleep. But he stayed positive, working six days a week as a gas line flagger and traffic controller at construction sites. He used his earnings to reimburse his grandfather for a used car and to pay half his attorney’s fees. When time permitted, he grunted through basem*nt workouts with a grungy weight machine to maintain strength for the college workouts he still hoped to join.
During a hearing last October, Sweeney seemed impressed with his progress. It persuaded her to release him from his ankle monitor. But one misstep, she warned, could set him back significantly and impact the bindover decision.
“You got a whole lot at stake,” she reminded him.
‘That peace feeling’
A few days later, John was lounging at home, his ankle bare as he shook off seven months of cabin fever. His amenability hearing was scheduled for January, three months away. Eager to put the bindover ruling behind him, the 18-year-old planned to resume outdoor football drills, “to see if I still got it,” he jokes.
He admitted to associating with the wrong crowd, leading up to his legal troubles. They were new friends he’d made after he transferred schools his senior year, to increase his prospects of being scouted for football. The impressionable teen started getting into fights.
Legally, his record was clean prior to the shooting, but he recognizes he was heading down a bad path. “If I kept doing what I was doing, I might’ve ended up doing something I can’t come back from,” he allows.
He likely understands how growing up in greater Cleveland puts Black teens like him at higher risk for criminal justice involvement, including bindover. Roughly 30% of the county’s population – youth and adult – is Black, according to U.S. Census data. Yet, 71% of the youth who have faced delinquency charges in the last five years and 92% of those transferred to adult court are Black, a Plain Dealer/cleveland.com analysis showed.
So are the majority of homicide victims, including youths. One of John’s former teammates was murdered. John also recalls a time his grandfather nearly became a victim, after a bullet pierced his windshield, while he drove through Cleveland in broad daylight.
Football, the sport John had played since he was 5, was supposed to be his safety net – a ticket out of Cleveland, where danger was too much of a reality.
“Football is like a getaway from everything,” he explains. “You know if you have a long workday, came home and showered and got into bed and went to sleep? That’s the feeling football gave me, that peace feeling.”
But as his case dragged on, his hope of moving on and playing college ball faded. Interest from coaches nearly fizzled out, and one tentative offer fell through, he says.
He felt stuck – waiting.
‘A dark space’
In early January, with John’s amenability still pending, his mother was anxious. She believed the hearing would hinge largely on John’s psychological evaluation. But there was one problem: John still hadn’t met with a psychologist.
She’d already noticed changes in the three months since his home detention. He’d grown quick to anger, his self-esteem had faltered, and he became reclusive.
John’s mom expected his psychological examination to trigger immediate therapy, based on her conversations with court officials, which could also strengthen his case for amenability. But that process hadn’t even started, and she claims John’s case manager was MIA for months.
“Juvenile court is supposed to be all about treatment,” she says, adding, “When and where are these programs?”
At the same time, John’s construction company cut back on winter hours. He applied for a DoorDash job to fill the void, but it didn’t pay as well.
Depression, he recalls now, “was knocking on the door.”
The 18-year-old still wanted to play college football in the fall, but with his swirling legal issues, it was hard to see a path forward. It had been more than a year since he strapped on shoulder pads.
“I’ve watched my son drop into a dark space because we don’t know if we are going left or right,” his mom says.
New charges
After motivational talks with his mom, John eventually turned a corner, renewing efforts to play college football, far from Cleveland.
“I knew I needed a complete change of environment,” he says.
He picked up old conversations with coaches and applied to schools. For his essay, he argued that football could be lifesaving. He also, finally, met with his court-appointed psychological evaluator, he says.
Suddenly, in January, a warrant was issued for John’s arrest.
A month before, a man walked into a Cleveland police station to report an armed robbery. The two gunmen wore masks, but one looked familiar. The assailants took his car, phone and wallet.
The 20-year-old victim had a phone tracker, so he set out to find his car. Eventually, he spotted it in a parking lot with the headlights on. As he approached, two people exited the car and made a quick move, like they were going to chase him down. They carried weapons that looked like machine guns, the victim would tell police. This time he felt sure he recognized one of them.
The victim turned to run. Suddenly, several shots rang out behind him, he reported. He frantically flagged down a vehicle and waited for police to arrive.
Authorities accused John of being one of the assailants. Now 18, he was indicted in adult court for aggravated robbery, felonious assault and other felonies. He spent several days in jail before posting bond.
He declines to discuss the new charges, though he acknowledges falling back with the wrong crowd after he was freed from his ankle monitor in October.
At some point, however, he says he learned that his psychological evaluator told the court in reports that “He needs to be in college playing football.”
“That sparked a fire under me,” John says.
By March, John had been accepted into college and was working out with the football team seven days a week. In April, spring ball would commence, and he’d don a helmet for the first time since 2022.
His amenability hearing in juvenile court is now scheduled for June. His adult court charges are pending.
Right now, though, John’s keeping his mind on football. He wants to start as a freshman in the fall, and he’s hoping a good batch of early grades might also help at his amenability hearing. He’s majoring in criminal justice.
“My story’s still being written,” he says.
(Coming tomorrow: Desianiah was 15 when she participated in a robbery plot that resulted in murder. The prosecutor wanted to bind her over to adult court, but first a judge had to decide her amenability. She says her history of trauma and mental health issues paved the way to crime – and were supposed to factor into her rehabilitation, too. Instead, she felt overlooked and cast aside: “I wasn’t a bad person, I just messed up.”)
Data Editor Rich Exner and data reporter Zachary Smith contributed to this report.
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