In re I.H., 2026 Kan. App. LEXIS 10 (Kan. 2026)

The Kansas Court of Appeals held that a youth may not be prosecuted as an adult if they were under the age of 13 at the time of the offense based on the court’s statutory interpretation of  K.S.A. 38-2347.

The court stated in relevant part:

“From this review, we do not find that the Legislature intended to deviate from considering a juvenile’s age at the time of the offense when determining whether a juvenile should be prosecuted as an adult. As explained, the State’s requested interpretation could lead to meaningless legislation and absurd results. See Gomez, 320 Kan. at 15. Additionally, in its overhaul of the Code, the Legislature sought to limit the adult prosecution of juveniles by raising the minimum age for prosecution as an adult from 12 to 14. See K.S.A. 38-2347(a)(1). The 2016 amendments also removed the prior language in K.S.A. 2015 Supp. 38-2347(a) that 14-, 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old juvenile offenders were presumed to be adults. See K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 38-2347(a). Interpreting K.S.A. 38-2347(a)(1) to prohibit adult prosecution of juvenile offenders less than 14 years of age at the time of the offense is also consistent with Kansas’ historical treatment of juvenile offenders based on the age at the time of the commission of the offense. Overall, we find the State’s arguments are unpersuasive.

We conclude that a juvenile may only be prosecuted as an adult if the juvenile was 14 years or older at the time of the commission of the crime. As a result, a motion to authorize prosecution of a juvenile as an adult under K.S.A. 38-2347 is appropriate only if the complaint is filed after the juvenile was at least 14 years old when the offense was committed. The district court did not err when it found that, as a matter of law, I.H. and A.W. could not be tried as adults because they were less than 14 years old when they committed the offense.”