Teen Often Arrested, But Rarely Prosecuted

By design, the juvenile justice system is supposed to operate swiftly - from crime to consequences in a few months.

This is so youths in trouble can get the message quickly, before they go out and commit more crimes.

In the case of Kenneth “Junior” Comeslast, the system operated like a bad parent. It didn’t care.

Junior, 15, is now in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center, accused of killing two girls in Hillyard. He faces two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and prosecutors want him treated as an adult.

The charges are as serious as they get, prompting juvenile justice officials to retrace the boy’s exposure to the system.

They don’t like what they found.

Over the past 15 months, Junior was arrested six times on suspicion of nine crimes.

But only one case was successfully prosecuted - a burglary in which the boy’s mother called police and for which Junior was ready to plead guilty.

Several other arrests have fizzled, with no charges being filed. One charge was dropped. The rest were filed months late on Aug. 8 - the day before the Hillyard shootings.

“We could have intervened in this crime pattern,” said Rand Young, detention center manager. “We could have done something to get his attention. We saw a kid who was apparently in trouble and the system didn’t respond.”

Justice delayed in the juvenile system is rehabilitation denied.

Counseling and treatment programs are usually only available to youths after they are found guilty of crimes, Young said.

It took more than five months to resolve the burglary case, frustrating Sharon Comeslast, the boy’s mother. In the six months after his burglary arrest, he was arrested twice - for fourth-degree assault, reckless endangerment and malicious mischief.

“They should have done something,” she said. “But he was always released, always released, always released, all the time.”

Deputy Prosecutor Bill Reeves

said he took the reckless endangerment seriously. Junior was accused of participating in a non-injury drive-by shooting, a charge serious enough to keep him in detention.

But Reeves said an uncooperative witness forced him to dismiss the case in early January.

Young blames a lack of resources, most notably a shortage of deputy prosecutors and assistant public defenders.

“The system doesn’t need a bigger hammer against these kids, it just needs to work efficiently,” he said.

“It’s a problem, because the more immediate the impact (of breaking the law), the more meaningful it is,” said David Kirkman, an investigator assigned to Juvenile Court.

The problem became a crisis earlier this year, when judges discovered that prosecutors were sitting on a backlog of about 3,000 “open” cases, in which juveniles had been arrested but not charged.

Embarrassed, Spokane County Prosecutor Jim Sweetser recently shook up his juvenile unit, installing a new supervisor and bringing in another deputy.

Since then, the backlog has been reduced but not eliminated.

“We’re dealing with the major felonies swiftly,” said Superior Court Commissioner Royce Moe. “There’s no delay in those, no backlog with those kids.”

But non-violent burglars, thieves and vandals are getting scant attention. “That’s where our resources are stretched really thin,” Moe said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Falling throught the cracks