BATON ROUGE - Louisiana voters made their voices heard Saturday, rejecting every proposed Constitutional Amendment on the March 29 ballot, including one that could have changed which juvenile offenders get prosecuted as adults.

Proposed Amendment 3 would have granted the legislature the authority to determine which felony crimes committed by individuals under  17 could be transferred for prosecution as an adult. 

Voters were asked to remove the existing list of crimes from the state Constitution, allowing lawmakers to more easily expand the offenses that could result in juveniles being charged as adults.

"You can't put lipstick on a pig and tell us it's a dog. A pig is a pig and that's what we saw, we saw it for what it was. The people spoke, this was a bipartisan vote that says those amendments were not in favor of moving Louisiana forward," Dist. 5 Metro Councilmember Darryl Hurst said. "We're taking youth that are 12 years old and above and we're holding them in the juvenile detention centers until they're 17. So, we're taking away a kid's entire childhood so we can try them as an adult." 

Hurst, who is an advocate for the juvenile justice system, said the proposed changes were not going to solve the state's problems. 

“Instead of putting programs and services and focus on taking people from poverty, we want to lock the kids up for life," Hurst said. "What I see is that, we're so scared of young black kids that we would rather lock them up than deal with them. That's what this says to me." 

He said he's pleased with how the state came together to do what's right.

"I believe what's happening nationally is trickling down to us locally and Louisiana is not standing for it."