A Delaware judge has declined to try a 16-year-old girl as an adult in a high school bathroom fight that left another 16-year-old dead, CBS News reports.
In the announcement Friday, the judge said the defendant will be tried in Delaware Family Court on the charges of criminally negligent homicide and conspiracy.
The juvenile defendant is accused of repeatedly striking 16-year-old Amy Joyner-Francis in a planned attack April 21 at Wilmington, Del.'s Howard High School of Technology. Two other teens have been charged with conspiracy in the attack, which was caught on cellphone video.
According to the report, if the 16-year-old charged with homicide is found delinquent, she could face community supervision and treatment until she is 19.
“While this is [the teen’s] first contact with the justice system, it is a tragic one with a horrific outcome, an outcome that will have a longstanding impact on a family, a school and a community for many years,” Delaware Family Court Judge Robert B. Coonin wrote in his decision. “Whether [the teen] is tried in the Family Court or in the Superior Court, that outcome will not change; the senseless loss of a young girl’s life cannot be undone nor will the pain inflicted upon her family ever be extinguished.”
Read more at CBS News.