Juvenile defendants in recent murders are charged as adults – common in violent crime.

With eyes downcast, three defendants, handcuffed and wearing inmate jumpsuits, spoke just two words each to enter their pleas in court Feb. 4: Not guilty.

Jesus Gutierrez, Victor Ramirez and Jose Diaz are charged with murdering 17-year-old Cesar Gonzalez in front of his East Market Street house in Salinas on the afternoon of Jan. 13. The trio, all alleged Sureño gang members, are charged with premeditated murder for the benefit of a gang, and they all face potential life sentences.

The charges and potential sentence are common in a violent case like this, a drive-by shooting in daylight that left a young man dead. The only twist: Gutierrez and Ramirez are 17 years old. (Ramirez had a birthday in the last few weeks; he was 16 at the time of the murder.) Unlike 18-year-old Diaz, Gutierrez and Ramirez wear yellow jumpsuits stamped “Juvenile” on the back. In contrast, Diaz’s orange jumpsuit from Monterey County Jail signifies he’s an adult.

If they were charged as juveniles, convicted and sentenced, Gutierrez and Ramirez would be released from custody by age 25. Adults face sentences of 25-to-life as a minimum sentence for murder.

Charging juveniles as adults in certain circumstances is a power prosecutors gained with the passage of Proposition 21 in 2000.

“We have this arbitrary line, which is 18,” says Assistant District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni, who supervises the juvenile unit. “There’s no true distinction between a 17-year-old who’s 17 and 11 months old, and an 18-year-old who’s 18 and 1 month.”

Before Prop. 21, prosecutors were required to first petition the court to move juvenile defendants into adult court. (Juveniles tried as adults retain certain protections: They’re not eligible for the death penalty, and their criminal records remain confidential. If convicted, they won’t move into state prison custody until they turn 18.)

When a violent crime allegedly committed by a juvenile comes to the DA, District Attorney Dean Flippo and his six-person management team (including Pacioni) consider whether to press adult charges. They weigh factors like age, criminal record and the facts of the case.

“These decisions aren’t made in a vacuum,” Pacioni says. “They are made after a deliberation and take into consideration all these factors. We’re only using this in very rare situations.”

Last year, there were 603 juvenile court cases in Monterey County. Of those, four juveniles were charged directly as adults. (That’s a drop-off from previous years: There were 17 such cases in 2013 and 11 in 2012.) Those defendants were charged with crimes like murders, attempted murders, kidnappings and armed robberies.

Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin is skeptical the harsher sentences work as a deterrent. “The times that I have heard people say they didn’t commit a crime because the penalty would be too high, I can count on one hand,” he says.

Voters approved Prop. 21 when the defendants in the Gonzalez case were just toddlers 15 years ago. McMillin wonders if the gravity of the change in law is lost on teenagers today.

“That’s the entire generation of kids who can now be tried as adults,” he says. “They’ve known nothing else.”