Solano County prosecutors say a 17-year-old should stand trial as an adult for the shooting that killed a graduate and wounded three people outside a Fairfield graduation in June — but the district attorney's office conceded, in the unusually detailed statement it attached to the case, that the decision is not its to make.

Much of the coverage described the DA as "seeking adult charges," but that phrasing glosses over the mechanics the office itself spelled out: after Proposition 57 in 2016 and further legislation in 2019, a prosecutor can no longer route a minor into adult court by choice. Only a juvenile court judge can move the case, and only after finding clear and convincing evidence that the teenager is not amenable to rehabilitation. What happens to Khare Clark rests with a judge, not with the charging decision that made headlines.

Khare Clark, 17, pleaded not guilty this week in the June 3 death of 18-year-old Jamario Baker. In juvenile court on Wednesday, Clark stood before presiding Judge Jeffrey Kauffman and denied every count in the petition against him — one count of murder, three of attempted murder, and two firearms felonies, the Vacaville Reporter reported (external source, opens in a new tab). His next date, set for 9 a.m. Sept. 21, will not resolve the adult-court question; it exists only to schedule the hearing where that question gets argued.

The bloodshed interrupted a celebration. Around 1,000 people had gathered June 3 for the Sem Yeto Continuation High School graduation, held in the parking lot area of the Fairfield High School campus. Baker had just collected his diploma when he was shot; witnesses said he was trying to pull a young girl clear of the gunfire, the Vacaville Reporter reported (external source, opens in a new tab). An 11-year-old and two adults, 20 and 25, were also wounded. All three lived. The school has since set up a legacy fund in Baker's name for students working to turn their lives around.

Clark fled to Texas after the shooting, investigators said. He was picked up July 10 near Dallas–Fort Worth with the help of the U.S. Marshals Service, returned to California by late July, and formally charged on July 28, CBS Sacramento reported (external source, opens in a new tab). The office had filed its petition to move the case to adult court back on July 2, Bay City News reported (external source, opens in a new tab).

What sets the filing apart is the history lesson the DA bolted onto it. In a press release, the office traced how the power to try children as adults has changed hands repeatedly over three decades: before 1994 it sat entirely with the juvenile court; a 1998 ballot measure let prosecutors file directly against minors as young as 14 for serious or violent crimes; Proposition 57 stripped that direct-file authority in 2016, requiring every juvenile case to open in juvenile court; and Senate Bill 1391 in 2019 restricted transfers to defendants who are 16 or 17, the Vacaville Reporter reported (external source, opens in a new tab).

The upshot, the office conceded in its own words, is that a prosecutor "cannot simply decide" to try a teenager like Clark as an adult, the Vacaville Reporter reported (external source, opens in a new tab). Moving the case takes more: at the transfer hearing, the burden falls on prosecutors to convince the judge, to a degree the office described as "clear and convincing," that the juvenile system could not rehabilitate him. In the statute's phrase, he must be shown "not amenable to rehabilitation."

That evidentiary bar — not the September calendar call — is the actual contest. Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams' office has cleared the first procedural hurdle by filing. But Clark, who will pass his 18th birthday during a process that can run for months, reaches an adult courtroom only if a judge makes that finding. For Baker's family and a shaken Fairfield, the difference between a charging decision and a judicial ruling is not a technicality — it defines the road ahead.