A constitutional amendment awaiting voters on the March 29 ballot would harm the wellbeing of children if passed. That’s the belief of Andrew Casanave, supervising attorney with the Calcasieu Public Defenders’ Office.

Proposed Amendment No. 3 on the ballot to amend Article V, Section 19 of the Constitution of Louisiana reads: “Do you support an amendment to provide the Legislature the authority to determine which felony crimes, when committed by a person under the age of 17, may be transferred for criminal prosecution as an adult?”

“The Louisiana Constitution has been amended many times and the current iteration passed in 1974,” Casanave said. “I remember because the vote was the day before my 18th birthday and I couldn’t vote on it.”

He said in 1908, another iteration of the Louisiana Constitution was passed and it was the first one that separated adult criminals from juvenile criminals.

“It was the one that declared that children wouldn’t be automatically held to the same standard as adults,” Casanave said. “We’re talking 117 years ago, the people of Louisiana had the good sense to pass that. They knew that kids are kids and adults are adults.”

Casanave said there also contains within the constitution a list of crimes for which children can be charged as adults.

“It’s the big ones — murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, armed robbery, kidnapping — it’s not the little stuff,” he said. “For whatever reason, when Gov. Jeff Landry was a brand-new governor he called a special session to deal with finances and somehow thrown in there was a proposed constitutional amendment to strip out that provision in the constitution and replace it with this — which is essentially children can be charged with whatever the Legislature decides children can be charged with.”

That means voters are stripped of their power and that power is given to the Legislature, he said.

Casanave said this is the same governor who when he was the state attorney general thought it was “a bad idea” to require unanimous jury verdicts in criminal trials.

“I take him and everything he said over the last many years as him having no problem with locking up anybody,” he said. “I think the only way he would be opposed to locking up someone was if their name was Landry.”

Casanave said the state has gone 117 years without throwing every juvenile in adult criminal court. That shouldn’t stop now.

“This is frightening. Any felony could become what the Legislature — a group of politicians — decides is the important stuff. This proposed amendment also takes out the stuff that’s obvious. It takes out murder, rape and robbery — the things that obviously belong there — and it just says ‘whatever the Legislature decides.’ ”

Because of the growing trend of low voter turnout across the state — only 8 percent of Calcasieu residents voted in the Dec. 7, 2024, election, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website — Casanave said he fears the constitutional amendment will be passed by its supporters — not rejected by the parents of children who the measure could ultimately effect in the future.

“If people who are informed and pay attention show up, this thing will fail,” he said. “If only the people who are supporting this anyway show up, it will pass. Period. I’m asking for people to get up and care and vote no,” he said. “On March 29, if this passes, they’re going to make it to where if your kid or your neighbor’s kid screws up or does something stupid, it’s open season.”

Casanave said he has represented children accused of murder and the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney ultimately decided to not charge that juvenile as an adult.

“Prosecutors have that power now,” he said. “That could be taken away. The truth is every single possible crime simply becomes adult crime.”

Casanave said there are reasons Calcasieu Parish separates the correctional center and the juvenile detention center.

“In the juvenile center, they go to school, they get counseling,” he said. “At the correctional center, everyone is locked down except the trustees. Every juvenile is locked down and has to be to be protected because if you let the adults who are locked up in the parish jail be with the kids who are locked up in the parish jail, bad things can happen to the kids. Those kids, for their own safety, the sheriff has to lock them down.”

If those same people were charged as juveniles — like Casanave said some should be — they would go through programs to “make them better.”

“Juvenile courts are designed to make kids better,” he said. “Juvenile courts can demand that parents be involved. Adult courts don’t care if you have parents. It’s you — and whether you’re 15 or 50, if doesn’t matter.”

That’s what is being proposed to voters on March 29, he said.

“This takes the people and their vote out of it,” he said. “We don’t want these kids held to the adult standard. We don’t want somebody who made a stupid mistake — because 15-year-olds do that sort of thing and 14-year-olds do that sort of thing — to suddenly be facing prison.”

Casanave said an offender should, of course, face consequences for their actions — but it should not be for legislators to decide.

“Late in the session, when they’re exhausted, they all want to go home, they vote ya on everything,” he said. “What kind of God-awful things could come from that? That’s what we’re looking at.”

Prior to working at the public defender’s office, Casanave worked for the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney.

“I was never wanting to hold kids to the same standards as every adult should be held to,” he said. “If I do something at this point in my life, shame on me. But we can’t hold kids to the same standard as adults for the nonviolent, dumb stuff they do. Even if it’s dumb stuff that adheres to the criminal code.”