Charges finally have been filed in the case of Martin Lee Anderson, the 14-year-old boy who died in January after being beaten and suffocated by guards at a Panama City Sheriff's boot camp.

Seven guards and a nurse will stand trial for aggravated manslaughter on a child, and could receive 30 years in prison if convicted.

Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober didn't find evidence of conspiracy or coverup at higher levels in Anderson's death, including by a Bay County medical examiner or top Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials.

We hope the wheels of justice will turn more quickly as the case goes to trial, but no matter its outcome, no one should be breathing easier about juvenile justice in Florida.

Lawmakers did away this year with juvenile boot camps, but a recent report supported by the Florida Supreme Court, Florida Bar and the state's public defenders found children arrested in Florida are mistreated from the moment they enter the system.

They're represented by inexperienced public defenders, encouraged to waive their right to counsel or accept hasty guilty pleas so judges can clear court dockets and unnecessarily handcuffed, chained or shackled together in groups, the report found.

The system needs top-to-bottom reform to end those abuses, but also to fulfill its primary mission: turning around the lives of at-risk youth before they become adult criminals.