Juvenile Court

Lawyers for a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting 15-year-old classmate Lawrence "Larry" King postponed entering a plea Thursday and sought instead to transfer the case to juvenile court. Brandon McInerney's attorney, Willie Quest, said the motion would challenge the constitutionality of trying his client as an adult. McInerney faces a charge of premeditated murder for allegedly killing King at school Feb. 12, after King openly flirted with him on campus. Prosecutors have labeled it a hate crime.

A trial began Wednesday for a teenager charged with setting the fire that destroyed the historic auditorium at Garfield High School, the Los Angeles Count district attorney's office said. The boy, 16, whose name was not released because he is a minor, was a freshman at the school when the May 2007 blaze caused an estimated $30 million in damage. The auditorium, built in 1925, featured ornate plaster molding, handcrafted wooden seating, murals and a paneled ceiling. The teen was charged with arson of a structure.

Seventeen-year-olds who were charged with felonies as adults under a short-lived state law will have their cases dismissed or be transferred back to juvenile court under a judge's ruling released in Providence. The decision affects about 100 teens known as "gap kids" who were charged from July to November after Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri and the Democratic General Assembly agreed to send the teens to adult courts and prisons as a cost-saving measure. "It is apparent that defendants' rights were violated by their direct placement in the adult criminal system," Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini said in his ruling.

A 72-year-old woman admitted paying her teenage grandson $150 to set fire to her landlord's house days after she received an eviction notice. Nola Mae Williams pleaded guilty in Stafford to arson, breaking and entering with the intent to commit arson, and criminal solicitation of a felony. Charges against the 15-year-old boy were handled in closed juvenile court. Williams was ordered jailed without bond until her Feb. 2 sentencing.

A 13-year-old Palmdale Pony League pitcher convicted of murdering a 15-year-old with a baseball bat was sentenced Thursday to confinement at the California Youth Authority until the age of 25. The boy, who was not identified because of his age, clubbed Jeremy Rourke in the head after the older boy, a friend of the family, teased him for losing a game. The 13-year-old could be released at the discretion of youth prison authorities before his 12-year term is completed.

Lawyers for three young men convicted of sexually assaulting a severely intoxicated 16-year-old girl told an Orange County Superior Court judge on Tuesday that they would decide by week's end whether they would push for their clients to be sentenced to a juvenile facility rather than prison. If they try to get their clients into the California Youth Authority, probation officers will assess each defendant's suitability before another hearing in six weeks.

The 13-year-old boy accused of shattering a Palmdale youth baseball community with a lethal bat attack on a 15-year-old acquaintance appeared in court Monday and denied murder charges. The boy, whose name is being withheld because of his age, is accused of clubbing Jeremy Rourke at least twice after Jeremy teased him about losing a game. He is being charged with murder in juvenile court. The youth's denial is equivalent to a "not guilty" plea in adult court, said Deputy Dist. Atty.

A juvenile court judge who ordered a Mexican immigrant mother to improve her English or face losing custody of her 11-year-old daughter did not require the woman to answer a series of questions in English during a hearing in Lebanon. Juvenile Court Judge Barry Tatum told Felipa Berrera during a closed hearing in October that she would need to show basic English proficiency when she returned to court in six months. But at Monday's hearing he didn't require English responses to questions.

Ventura County officials celebrated the opening of a juvenile courthouse in El Rio on Wednesday with laudatory speeches, a marching band and lots of bad hair. Winds whipped across the front lawn of the limestone-and-glass building during a ceremony marking completion of the long-awaited Steven Z. Perren Juvenile Justice Complex. "I bet you don't mind all the hot air today," quipped Kathy Long, chairwoman of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, one of several dignitaries to speak.