(The Center Square) – A bill introduced this month in the California Legislature would add conspiracy to commit murder to the list of felonies for juvenile offenders.
Under the legislation, youths ages 14 and 15 could be tried as an adult in criminal court.
Current law allows juvenile court cases to be transferred to criminal court if the youths were alleged to have committed a felony while they were 16 or 17 years old. Fourteen- and 15-year-old minors alleged to have committed a serious offense can also be transferred from juvenile court to criminal court under current law. Assembly Bill 1968 adds conspiracy to commit murder to the list of serious offenses.
Assemblymember James Gallagher, R-East Nicolaus, who introduced AB 1968, said the bill is an effort to curtail violent attacks planned by young offenders.
An example is Tehama County in Northern California, where teenagers at a middle school planned a detailed school shooting. Authorities were tipped off to the planned attack by a teenager in Tennessee, who saw the teens’ communications online about the plan, according to Gallagher.
Officials from the Tehama County Sheriff’s Office were unavailable for comment this week.
“What we had here was juveniles who planned a very thought-out mass murder,” Gallagher told The Center Square on Wednesday. “Right now, under California law, they could only be charged with juvenile statutes, and there’s no really strong punishment. Maybe if we have criminal intent here, it gives greater ability to have a punishment that meets the crime.”
In an era of mass shootings, Gallagher said he wants state law to come down more severely on those who plan attacks like the one in Tehama County.
“We should be doing everything we can to deter this kind of evil intent and evil acts,” Gallagher told The Center Square.
Under current law, the list of felonies that could already get a minor transferred from juvenile court to criminal court includes voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, carjacking, aggravated mayhem, torture, attempted murder, assault with a firearm or destructive device, discharge of a firearm into an inhabited building, and arson, among other offenses, according to the text of AB 1968.
The bill was introduced earlier this month and is scheduled for a public hearing in March, according to the state of California’s bill tracker.
According to data from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, 1,728 people have been killed since 1966 in mass shootings, and 2,700 have been injured in those attacks. That data shows that mass shootings have been increasing in frequency since 1966, rising from two that year to 24 in 2018. Twenty mass shootings occurred in 2025 alone. Approximately 55% of perpetrators were white, and 95.4% of those attackers were male, according to the Rockefeller data.
Democratic Assembly members on public safety committees were not able to comment on the bill, as many had not yet seen it. However, Republican legislators told The Center Square on Thursday that Gallagher’s bill counters criminal justice reforms made in recent years that are more lenient on those who commit violent offenses.
“A juvenile who actually is committing the conspiracy to commit murder, or for that matter, a mass murder – certainly a crime of that offense has got to raise to the level of a criminal court, so I fully support it” Sen. Roger Niello, R-Roseville, told The Center Square after a Senate floor session Thursday. “Does it have a chance? In this legislature, given the profile of our public safety committees, we’ll see. I would like to see it pass, but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was held up in committee.”
Niello added, “We’ll see what we can do.”
Gun safety organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety and Sandy Hook Promise were unavailable to field inquiries from The Center Square on Thursday.
