For School Kids in California, A Fight is Just a Fight—Not a Crime

Great news out of California: An appeals court
there just ruled that when two students get into a fight on school
grounds, it isn’t a crime for the courts to rule
on—it’s merely something the principal has to handle.
In other words, a blow has been struck against
the school-to-prison
pipeline!

Bob
Egelko in the SFGate has
more on the specific details of the determination, which was
reached by the First District Court of Appeals:

The case comes from Ukiah, where 15-year-old Fernando C. got
into a fistfight with a fellow high school student behind a shed
near the football practice fields one day in December 2012. Neither
student was hurt, Fernando’s lawyer said, but police
referred the case to the Mendocino County district attorney, who
charged the youth with the misdemeanor crime of fighting on school
grounds.

It turned out that fighting on school grounds is a crime
only for a non-student, and doesn’t apply under state law to a
student enrolled at the school. A juvenile court judge agreed
to substitute the charge of fighting in a “public place.”
The judge found that Fernando had committed that crime and placed
him on probation.

The First District Court of Appeals in San
Francisco disagreed Thursday and threw the case
out.

A panel of three judges reasoned that student fights on school
grounds should be subject to school discipline, not the juvenile
justice system.

As Fernando’s court-appointed lawyer said, “It’s something
that society at large is starting to recognize, that not every
mistake a child makes in life is chargeable as a criminal
offense.”

Amen to that.

For more stories like this one, check out Lenore
Skenazy’s Free-Range
Kids blog.