Keep prosecuting teens as adults for shoplifting? Involuntary manslaughter? Lawmakers disagree.

Sentiment is growing among state lawmakers that 16- and 17-year-olds should no longer automatically be treated as adults when they commit some low-level offenses.

But the two chambers differ on where to draw the line. The House is moving forward with a proposal that would have cases of teenagers who commit misdemeanors or low-level felonies handled in the juvenile justice system, with an exception for motor-vehicle violations.

The Senate, which put the provisions in its budget, limits the law to misdemeanors.

A House committee on Thursday is set to debate spending $25 million next year to build a 96-bed youth detention center. The proposed budget the Senate is set to vote on Thursday does not include those costs.

Sen. Harry Brown, a Jacksonville Republican and Senate budget writer, said the Senate is starting with misdemeanors as a way to phase in the changes “and see how it will affect the court system.” The Senate would make the changes effective in 2020, while the House starts a year earlier.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, the Hendersonville Republican who is shepherding proposed legislation through the House, said he was pleased to see the provisions in the Senate budget, but that he would continue with his plan to pass House Bill 280.

The differences between the two approaches would need to be negotiated.

“There are all sorts of ways we can fund this,” McGrady said, and there are different ways to phase in the changes.

“We now have agreement in principle, and that’s huge,” he said.

The state House has pushed through “raise the age” bills in previous years, but the Senate has not taken them up.

A House committee approved HB 280 Wednesday after hearing support for the bill from a district attorney, a judge, a county commissioner, and others.

Committee members said trying teenagers as adults on charges they’ll carry through their lives can keep them from getting an education, jobs, and housing. They said it makes more sense to handle the cases in the juvenile justice system, which focuses on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

Criminal charges can leave young people with no hope, said Rep. Bob Steinburg, an Edenton Republican. “That has to be absolutely the most frustrating, painful circumstance in which someone might find themselves,” he said.

There are already 11 county programs in the state that divert defendants into the juvenile justice system.

Without a change, North Carolina would be the last state to automatically treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in criminal court.

Most of the charges 16- and 17-year-olds pick up are minor, and juvenile crime is falling. But Rep. Sarah Stevens, a Mount Airy Republican, asked about some of the more serious charges that are considered low-level felonies, which include involuntary manslaughter, embezzlement, and assault by strangulation.

Rep. Marcia Morey, a Durham Democrat and former District Court judge, said the bill sets guidelines for transferring cases to adult court under certain conditions.

McGrady said the House bill took the recommendations of a blue-ribbon court commission that Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin organized. Shoplifting, which can carry a felony charge, is one of the reasons low-level felonies are included in the bill.

“Is that really a lifetime offense?” McGrady asked.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Keep prosecuting teens as adults for shoplifting? Involuntary manslaughter? Lawmakers disagree.."