The case of one of four Damascus High School athletes charged with rape after a football team hazing incident will be moved to juvenile court, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge ruled Friday.
The attorney for Will Smith said during a nearly daylong hearing that his client had been a victim of a similar hazing as a freshman and sending the case into the juvenile court system would be more appropriate than trying the teen as an adult.
“I don’t think there’s any question the services are more appropriately rendered in the juvenile system,” said David Felsen, Smith’s defense lawyer.
Smith, 15, was charged with two counts of first-degree rape, two counts of attempted first-degree rape, and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree rape stemming from a Halloween night incident where five football players allegedly sexually assaulted four other players with broomsticks in a locker room.
Felsen said in a news conference after the hearing that no conclusions were drawn as to liability and the case is far from over.
“Juvenile court is certainly not a pass,” Felsen said. “That’s just a more appropriate venue for this particular circumstance.”
Four players, all 15 years old, were charged as adults in late November and hearings for the three others are scheduled in late February and early March. Another player was charged as a juvenile.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said at a news conference the state would not take a “light” position on the three remaining cases.
“We will look at each individual, and I would hope that the judge does the same,” McCarthy said. “Each boy is separate, distinct, and what position we will take in the upcoming waiver hearing will depend upon information that we gather as to each individual.”
Maryland law requires that age, mental and physical condition, amenability to juvenile treatment, nature of the offense and participation and public safety are factors to be considered in moving a case from circuit to juvenile court.
A clinical psychologist, Frederick Oeltjen, who conducted an analysis of Smith, said during the hearing that Smith did not possess “abilities commensurate with adult competence,” and found he had a “lack of understanding” of appropriate actions in various social settings.
Oeltjen then revealed Smith had been “broomed” his freshman year and came to understand the event as a customary football team occurrence, “something that was tradition and supposed to be done.”
The case has attracted national attention and forced authorities to investigate whether there is a culture of hazing in other schools.
Judge Steven Salant, in deciding to send the case to juvenile court where proceedings are generally closed and a focus is on providing services to help youths, said there’s no disputing the nature of the crime suggests the case should be tried in adult court, but four other factors point to sending it to the juvenile court.
When discussing the report that Smith had been sexually assaulted with a broom, Salant noted Damascus Principal Casey Crouse told police there had been allegations of hazing the previous year, although the school didn’t have specific details.
“It gives one pause when you hear that,” Salant said.
