{"id":445895,"date":"2026-08-28T06:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445895\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T06:51:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T06:51:26","slug":"under-sb-1391-first-degree-murder-for-independence-hs-shooting-can-mean-4-to-7-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/445895\/","title":{"rendered":"Under SB-1391, first-degree murder for Independence HS shooting can mean 4 to 7 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 A 15-year-old charged <\/a>with first-degree murder with special circumstances, a gang enhancement and personally using a firearm to cause death cannot be tried as an adult under a California law that applies to children under 15, a restriction that drew sharp criticism from the district attorney.<\/p>\n

On the courthouse steps moments after the charges were filed, District Attorney Zimmer said the decision is not discretionary. \u201cIt\u2019s not our choice. I\u2019m not happy about it. This is not some sort of district attorney discretion. It is the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimmer said that under the law, even a first-degree murder conviction in juvenile court can result in a limited period of confinement. \u201cEven if convicted of first-degree murder, the confinement time is anywhere from four to seven years. For first degree murder, four to seven years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The law is intended to focus on rehabilitation, but Zimmer said that approach does not fit every case. \u201cI believe very strongly in rehabilitation for juvenile offenders. But it comes to the point where certain offenders are so dangerous and are committing crimes like an adult that they should be treated like an adult in adult court,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to the murder-related counts, the teen also faces charges of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and a probation violation tied to crimes committed before the shooting. Zimmer said, \u201cHis crimes were escalating in seriousness, and he was convicted of an assault with a deadly weapon with a knife on his mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defense attorney Marc Anthony Raimondo said he supports SB-1391, the law limiting adult prosecution for younger teens, even while acknowledging the impact on victims\u2019 families. \u201cI think the statute\u2019s good. I think in this particular situation, sure on paper it sounds super tragic. He\u2019ll be out someday; the family won\u2019t get full justice. But in general, though the concept of rehabilitation is a great idea,\u201d Raimondo said. \u201cFor all of us, I think the dollar well spent is on rehabilitation and not just on punishment. And that\u2019s just my criminal defense attorney perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raimondo also argued that reducing gang violence requires broader changes beyond rewriting a single statute. \u201cI think of all the areas to change, there\u2019s a lot more work to be done at home than to be done at the legislator trying to change this one specific law,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we go work on our process of probation. We can work on our process of being family-oriented. We can try to put less dads in prison. There\u2019s a hundred things I can think of that could, you know, fix the soil where this grew out of as opposed to just fixing the one bud that grew bad out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) \u2014 A 15-year-old charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances, a gang enhancement and personally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-445895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}