The state of Florida leads the nation in direct filing, a practice that allows prosecutors to bypass a judge and send children directly to adult court; and for Black youth in Miami-Dade County, this legal mechanism acts as an impenetrable trapdoor.
Statistics show that Black children represent a disproportionate percentage of those transferred to adult facilities, often for crimes where their white peers are diverted to rehabilitative juvenile programs instead, according to The Sentencing Project.
That systemic imbalance found it’s way to Nelson Nuñez, Jusiah Jones and Xavier Tyson. Following an alleged assault of a pre-teen girl at the Green Haven Project last June, that legal trapdoor swung open for Nuñez, Jones and Tyson. Their transition from a community garden near Frederick Douglass Elementary School to the cold reality of the adult system serves as a disturbing illustration of how the state of Florida can redefine a Black child’s life in a split second.
Despite their juvenile ages—with Jones standing as a mere 12-year-old at the time of the alleged assault—the state’s decision to bypass the juvenile system immediately stripped them of the legal protections typically afforded to children, and into the hands of a legal system built for men.
It was June 18, 2025, when a 12-year-old girl was reportedly ambushed and allegedly subjected to a brutal sexual assault for 30 agonizing minutes. The alleged assault only stopped because the suspects reportedly heard a male’s voice, which authorities later confirmed was her father calling out her name, according to CBS News.
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