The 6-year-old dangled his legs above the floor as he sat at the table with his defense attorney, before a North Carolina judge.
He was accused of picking a tulip from a yard at his bus stop, his attorney Julie Boyer said, and he was on trial in juvenile court for injury to real property.
The boy's attention span was too short to follow the proceedings, Boyer said, so she handed him crayons and a coloring book.
"I asked him to color a picture," she said, "so he did."
He didn't know it, but no matter what the judge decided, the experience could change the boy's life, experts say, from how he sees the court system to increasing his chance of getting into trouble again and being sent to alternative school.
Boyer and others say children that age don't have the mental capacity to understand the juvenile justice process and its consequences. They can't make informed decisions, like whether to talk to police and what to tell them, whether to go to trial and whether to admit to the accusations against them, which are called complaints.
The N.C. Juvenile Justice section, part of the state Department of Public Safety, requires parents' involvement, but the accused child is the defendant and is expected to assist in his or her defense.
"Should a child that believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy be making life-altering decisions?" asked New Hanover County Chief District Court Judge Jay Corpening.
The research says no, "even at 10, 11 and some 14-year-olds," said Corpening, who chairs a state subcommittee studying this issue at the General Assembly's request.
Advocates for raising the age for juvenile proceedings include Gov. Roy Cooper's Task Force on Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, which recommends the age be raised to 12. A subcommittee of the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee, which was established by the state legislature, recommends 10. The National Juvenile Justice Network recommends 14.
William Lassiter, deputy secretary of North Carolina's Juvenile Justice section, said he supports raising the age to 10 and having competency evaluations for 11- and 12-year-olds.
Whether the proposal becomes law could hinge on the response from the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys and law enforcement. The N.C. Sheriff's Association and N.C. Association of Chiefs of Police haven't taken a stand, officials said.
Jim Woodall, district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties, and Satana Deberry, district attorney for Durham County, support raising the age as well.
"A 6-year-old cannot comprehend what is taking place in court, but probably will never forget being labeled a delinquent," Deberry wrote in an email.
Another criticism of the juvenile justice system is that it disproportionately affects young children of color.
"When a cop picks up a white boy, he takes him to his parents," said Mary Stansell, juvenile chief at the Wake County Public Defender's Office. "But if he is black, he takes him to the state."
From 2015 through 2018 nearly 7,300 complaints were filed against children age 6 to 11 years old, according to numbers from the state Juvenile Justice section.
Of those complaints, 47% were against Black children, 40% were against white children and 7% against Hispanic or Latino children.
In general, 22% of the state's population is Black, 70% is white and 10% is Hispanic.
"It is a suspected statistic," said Yakob Lemma, 17, an Enloe High senior and co-founder of the Wake County Black Student Coalition, a student-led organization that wants to remove school resource officers from schools and make other changes. "This is just proof that we have been criminalized since we're young, since we are little kids, and we have to grow up all our lives like that, with being criminalized and being actively targeted."
Once children are in the system, the disparities continue. The process can penalize children whose parents can't take time off during a workday or who lack transportation to go to an intake meeting or drive their children to other programs, attorneys said.
