Court: Boy accused in mall shooting should be tried as adult

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled a boy accused of shooting and wounding eight people at a suburban Milwaukee mall in 2020 should be tried in adult court.

The court, on a 4-3 decision released Wednesday, said a Milwaukee County Children’s Court judge was wrong in denying prosecutors’ request to waive the teen, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, to adult court.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler wrote that there was no reasonable basis for denying the state’s waiver petition.

The teen has been charged with eight felony counts of first-degree reckless injury. Prosecutors say he opened fire at Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa on Nov. 20, 2020, injuring three people in a group he was confronting, a friend who was with him and four random shoppers.

Ziegler was joined in the majority opinion by justices Pat Roggensack, Rebecca Bradley and Jill Karofsky.

Justice Brian Hagedorn dissented, joined by justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet.

“Although another judge might have reasonably reached a different conclusion on the same set of facts, this decision was within the discretion the law affords to circuit court judges,” Hagedorn wrote.