(...from California, home of Disneyland and the Mouseketeers....)
Jo Pastore, left, defense lawyer for Charles Andrew ``Andy'' Williams, 15, center, and attorney Randy Mize, right, consoles her client after El Cajon Superior Court Judge Herbert J. Exarhos ruled Friday, April 27, 2001, that Williams would be tried as an adult, as Proposition 21 requires, in the shooting death of two fellow students at Santana High School, March 5, 2001. Williams' lawyers are planning to appeal the decision. (AP Photo/Nadia Borowski Scott, Pool)
Friday April 27 3:53 PM ET
Calif. High School Shooting Suspect Faces Adult Trial
EL CAJON, Calif. (Reuters) - A 15-year-old boy charged with killing two students and injuring 13 others at his suburban San Diego high school must be tried as an adult, a judge ruled on Friday as he upheld a controversial California law.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Herbert Exarhos ruled that Charles ``Andy'' Williams would not be tried as a juvenile and that the year-old voter-approved law known as Proposition 21, which mandates that murder suspects over age 14 be tried as adults, is legal and constitutional.
The California Supreme Court said earlier this week that it would review the constitutionality of Prop. 21 which takes away from a judge the power to decide whether a juvenile should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult.
The case it would be considering involves eight San Diego County youths who were tried and convicted as adults in a racially motivated attack on a group of Latino workers.
Williams' attorneys last week asked Judge Exarhos to ignore applying Proposition 21 to their case, arguing that that the law was an unfinished compilation of failed legislative bills when voters passed it in March 2000 and therefore amounted to ''cruel and unusual punishment.''
Williams, a ninth grader, was captured in the boy's bathroom of Santana High School in Santee just outside San Diego minutes after the start of the March 5 shooting -- the worst incident of U.S. school violence since two teenagers killed 15 people, including themselves, at Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999.
He has pleaded not guilty to two murder charges, as well as more than a score of other charges including weapon possession, assault and attempted murder. A trial is expected to begin in July and if convicted, he could face life in prison. Had his case been transferred to juvenile court Williams may have faced lesser charges.
Relatives of the murdered youths fought for Williams' case to remain in adult court because they said sending it to the juvenile system sent a wrong message and could inspire copy cat shootings.
Dozens of people from a group called ``Charles 'Andy' Williams Coalition'' rallied for weeks to support the defense efforts to have the boy's case moved to juvenile court.
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