If the 14-year-old boy involved in the Route 10 fatal crash on Saturday is convicted he'll most likely be convicted of a felony.
But NBC10's chief I-Team reporter Jim Taricani found out that this juvenile won't be behind bars for long.
The bumping up of juvenile cases to adult cases started with killer Craig Price. Price was a juvenile when he brutally murdered four people in his neighborhood.
Rhode Island changed its laws to allow some minors charged with serious crimes to be waived into adult court, or certified, for a minor who commits a serious crime but might be able to be rehabilitated.
Anne Travers is the chief of the juvenile division at the public defender's office. She did not comment directly on the case of the 14-year-old who allegedly stole a van, struck another car, killing a 9-year-old girl but did explain the process.
"Certification is a hearing when family court makes a determination whether the child might be amendable to rehabilitation, but might need more time than the court has to offer to effectively rehabilitate."
When a juvenile is convicted of a felony, which could happen to the 14-year-old boy charged in connection with last weekend's accident, he probably won't be held at the boy's training school for long.
If a juvenile under 16 is convicted of a felony and the state takes no action, then that juvenile’s sentence ends at age 19.
"That's the maximum he could receive, he could receive less than that," said Travers.
If the attorney general does not certify or waive the 14-year-old, he could be released from the detention center by age 19 or sooner.
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