The prosecution of a Maryland teenager accused of firing 16 rounds from a homemade ghost gun onto a Germantown basketball court — killing one and wounding three — was moved to juvenile court by a Montgomery County judge who said new case law has “radically changed” how such decisions are made.
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The ruling means that Shilen Wylie, who was 14 last summer at the time of the shootings, could be released from custody within a year.
“It is clear that the [higher] courts have directed this court not to consider punishment as a factor in this proceeding,” Circuit Court Judge David W. Lease said from the bench last week.
The prospect of such a short detention enraged family members of the victims while Lease’s emphasis on rehabilitation drew praise from advocates of juvenile justice reform. They have long held that sending kids into adult prison only increases the likelihood they will reoffend when they get out. Lease spoke directly to that position, quoting from the recent opinion by the Maryland Court of Appeals.
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“Protection of the public is the ultimate goal of any program of controlling juvenile delinquency,” that court wrote, adding that “the program which is most effective in treating, educating, and rehabilitating youthful offenders will be the most economical and will best protect the public over the years.”
Wylie was originally charged as an adult with one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder, all of which carry potential sentences of life in prison. His attorneys moved to transfer the case to the juvenile system, setting off a series of hearings before Lease over the past month.
Listening to each proceeding was Ana Martinez, the mother of two of the basketball court shooting victims. Her son Axel Trejos, 20, was hit multiple times and died, and his 16-year-old brother survived gunshot wounds to his leg and arm. The younger brother was shot first, Martinez said, before Axel ran to protect him and was hit.
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14-year-old boy charged with murder after a shooting on a Maryland basketball court
“It was a massacre shooting,” she wrote in a letter to the judge, asking that Wylie remain in the adult system. “This crime has affected our whole family in every way possible; physically, emotionally, mentally … Our life changed in the blink of an eye.”
The day after Lease issued his decision, Martinez said that Wylie being locked up for as few as nine months was inadequate.
“Are you kidding me? You’re telling me you can take someone’s life, and you’re going to be a different person in nine months?” she said. “That’s going to send the wrong message to kids, that they can go kill someone and not be punished.”
Two Montgomery County defense attorneys not involved in the proceedings — both of them former prosecutors — saw both sides.
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“Tough case,” said Jessica Zarrella. “Do you protect everyone else by throwing him away? At the same time, it’s hard to give up on a 14-year-old, even when they’re accused of doing something like this. Do you say there’s a good person in there somewhere, there’s a good kid in there somewhere?”
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Paul Zmuda said Wylie’s case, prior to the new Maryland Court of Appeals opinion — known in courthouses around the state as “Davis” — would have been likely to remain in adult court. Given the opinion’s emphasis on rehabilitation, specifically termed “amenability to treatment,” Zmuda predicts that fewer juveniles will be tried in the adult system.
“Davis is huge,” he said.
Treating kids like adults?
Lease’s ruling comes amid heightened attention in Maryland and nationwide to juvenile crime and how to address it.
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On one side are those concerned about what they see as a surge in minors committing violent crimes — particularly carjackings — who advocate longer confinements as a deterrent. On the other are those who say that such thinking is outdated, ignores longer-term trends of falling juvenile crime and ultimately makes society less safe.
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In the Wylie case, if the juvenile court finds him responsible for the shootings, he likely would be sent to a program at a secure juvenile facility. But since youths can complete such programs within nine months, Wylie could then be released into the community on supervised probation, according to Zmuda, Zarrella and hearing testimony. A judge could impose tight supervision requirements, which if violated could get him sent back to a secure juvenile facility. “A judge could keep him on a very tight leash,” Zarrella said.
Maryland has long been one of the most active states in mandating that youths arrested for certain crimes at least start off in adult court. That covers 33 offenses, including anyone 14 or older charged with murder and anyone 16 or older charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon, according to Marcy Mistrett, director of youth justice for the Sentencing Project, a nationwide organization that advocates reduced incarceration rates overall.
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“Treating kids like adults is worse for everyone,” she said. “The child does worse in the adult system, public safety suffers, and the young people fail to get the rehabilitation that many victims hope for.”
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A spokesman for Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services, which oversees youth detention programs; said youths stay an average is six-to-twelve months. The programs’ success is measured by achieving “treatment-based goals,” the spokesman said, compared to an adult system that has a greater focus on time.
The trend nationwide is to reduce default starts in adult court. Some 26 states, Mistrett said, have done so.
Many Maryland officials want their state to join them. Current legislation in Annapolis would scale back automatic adult court charges. Cases could still be sent to the adult system, Mistrett said, but only after a judge conducts a full hearing to see if that’s the best course.
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Local prosecutors like Scott Shellenberger, the state’s attorney for Baltimore County, are urging caution.
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“I think there’s going to be a robust debate on where we draw lines,” he said, noting that in a case like Wylie’s, the absolute limit of his confinement stops when he turns 21 and likely will be far less.
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“The juvenile system is focused on correcting whatever went wrong with a person,” he said, “but I’m not convinced they can restore them in that amount of time.”
A ghost gun on a basketball court
Shilen Wyle was born on Nov. 3, 2006, and grew up in the Washington area subjected to abuse, trauma and limited role models, his attorneys asserted at the recent court hearings. He held only borderline intellectual functioning, according to witness testimony, but he earned good grades in school.
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At age 10, he got into a fight on a school bus but the matter was resolved with no detention and would represent his only exposure to the justice system, according to his attorneys. By the summer of 2021, living in Silver Spring, he had recently completed the eighth grade.
The night of Aug. 18, 2021, police say, Wylie traveled by Metro train and bus to the Plum Gar Community Recreation Center in Germantown. With him was a friend who had been arguing with a different teenager over the phone and by text, according to prosecutors.
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The pair found that 16-year-old, along with his siblings and friends, on the rec center’s outdoor basketball courts, authorities say. Wylie’s friend and the 16-year-old allegedly squared off in a fistfight, which lasted only a few moments. Wylie then allegedly pulled out a gun he had tucked in his waistband.
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“He carried it easily. He pulled it easily. He shot four people easily,” Montgomery County Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Fenton said.
Arriving officers broadcast a description of the suspect over police radio, which led to the arrest of Wylie, who was found nearby walking away from the scene and still armed with the gun, according to police and prosecutors.
New juvenile case law in Maryland
A month before the shootings, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued its opinion in the case of Howard Jimmy Davis.
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He had been 16 years old in 2017, court records show, when he was part of an armed home invasion in Baltimore County. After he was arrested and charged as an adult, a judge denied efforts to move the case to the juvenile system. The Court of Appeals had to decide whether that decision was correct.
The judges went back to 1943, when juvenile courts formally came to Maryland, and studied how local judges had subsequently handled such requests. In most cases, the appeals court found, the judges weighed two extremes: A child willing to better himself through juvenile system programs versus “either the brutal nature of the crime already committed or an inference drawn from it that the child will remain a danger to public safety.”
In too many cases, the judges wrote, the allegations and public safety matters held too much sway. The question shouldn’t be when the juvenile would be released, they added, it should be how best to treat and rehabilitate them.
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“Is there a program that can provide immediate safety to the public and make recidivism less likely?” the court wrote. “If so, absent some other circumstance, the child should be transferred to or remain in the juvenile system.”
Under that controlling opinion, Wylie’s attorneys made their case to Lease.
Throughout his life, Wylie’s attorneys said, he had yearned to better himself when forces weighed down on him.
“Shilen was saying, ‘Help me, someone please help me,’” Shelly Brown told the judge. “And what did he get from the school system? He got suspended. When he told his mother, ‘Help me,’ she kicked him out of the house.”
Brown added that under the Davis opinion, a defendant need only show that a juvenile facility would protect public safety “now,” not at any date in the future.
Prosecutors countered that Wylie really wasn’t amenable to treatment, saying 20 months of therapy prior to the shootings hadn’t made him think it was a bad idea. Given the typically short confinements in the juvenile system, they added, how could that have any greater effect?
“Frankly, it should be appalling to everyone that for these four crimes — carrying potential life sentences — that six to nine months of placement in a secure facility is an appropriate deterrent to prevent future behavior,” said Fenton, the prosecutor.
Lease spent 30 minutes on Thursday going through his ruling.
He said that given the allegations against Wylie, he currently posed a risk to public safety.
“The nature of the offenses in this case can be described simply as shocking and appalling,” he said. “It does not get much more serious than what happened in this case.”
But under the Davis opinion, Lease said, he could no longer view those factors independently, and must view them in the larger context of rehabilitation.
“This is a remarkable holding by the Court of Appeals, and it is a far cry from how the courts of Maryland have applied [case law] over the years,” Lease said. “The only real factor which is now determinative is amenability to treatment.”