Law named for Jackson teenager would change sentencing guidelines

A bill providing new guidelines for sentencing juvenile offenders passed the Missouri House and Senate and is awaiting Gov. Jay Nixon's signature.

"Jonathan's Law" was named for 17-year-old Jonathan McClard of Jackson, who hanged himself in prison in 2008 after pleading guilty to first-degree assault in connection with a July 2007 shooting that partially paralyzed another teenager.

The law would require judges to consider dual jurisdiction in cases in which minors are convicted as adults and explain their reasoning if they reject it; extend the time frame for eligibility for dual jurisdiction by six months; and allow youths who are charged and exonerated as adults to remain eligible for juvenile sentencing in future cases.

Under dual jurisdiction, young offenders are sent to the Division of Youth Services until they turn 17 years old, at which point they are re-evaluated.

A former Cape Girardeau County prosecutor said the law would have made no difference in the McClard case.

Circuit Judge David A. Dolan sentenced McClard to 30 years in prison -- the maximum adult sentence -- for first-degree assault after McClard met 17-year-old Jeremy D. Voshage at a Jackson carwash and shot him in the spine, ankle and testicle after a dispute over an ex-girlfriend.

"Judge Dolan was very articulate in his sentencing, and he pointed out that this was not a proper case for dual jurisdiction -- that it was so premeditated that he was going to send him to prison," said Morley Swingle, who prosecuted the McClard case. "He lured him there. ... He went with his rifle and lay in wait. There were surveillance photos of him sitting there like it was a deer stand."

McClard's mother, Tracy McClard, said Jonathan's Law will raise courts' awareness of programs for juvenile offenders and increase judicial accountability.

"In Jonathan's case, the judge needed to be held accountable," she said.

Swingle said the nature of the crime and Jonathan McClard's apparent lack of remorse afterward made him a poor candidate for dual jurisdiction.

"He was taunting him while he did it, saying, 'I hope he hurts,'" Swingle said. "He didn't belong around other children."

Tracy McClard maintains her son didn't belong around adult offenders, either.

The Campaign for Youth Justice has cited studies from the U.S. Justice Department showing juveniles in adult jails are at greater risk for both sexual assault and suicide than those in juvenile facilities.

Jonathan McClard himself expressed fear as he approached his 17th birthday, at which point he was eligible for transfer from Northeast Correctional Center -- a high-medium-security facility where he was housed in a separate area from the general population until his 17th birthday -- to the maximum-security Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Mo., where he would have lived among the general prison population.

A week before his suicide at a Bonne Terre, Mo., transport facility, he was quoted in a Dec. 28, 2007, article in the Southeast Missourian as saying the Charleston prison was "about the worst there is."

Tracy McClard said an eligibility deadline extension could have affected her son's case.

Currently, youths must complete the court process by age 17 to be eligible for a juvenile sentence; under Jonathan's Law, they would be eligible for six months past their 17th birthday.

"We felt rushed, because Jonathan committed a crime six months before his 17th birthday," Tracy McClard said. "Jonathan just pled guilty from the get-go, and we told him that he should. ... At the time, we felt the best thing to do was hurry the process up so we would get it done by his 17th birthday."

In pleading guilty, Jonathan McClard did not have the opportunity to explain his motives, his mother said.

"We missed a whole piece of his defense," she said.

State Sen. Wayne Wallingford, R-Cape Girardeau, sponsored the bill in the state Senate.

epriddy@semissourian.com

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