Well, ideally the lawmakers should make appropriate laws before they are needed. And once a few cases like that come along, it should be obvious that the juvenile criminal system needs to change with the expectation that there will be more in the future.
There seems to be a general belief developing that certain crimes indicate that the perpetrator is an irredeemable bad seed–a motiveless killing or repeated sexual assaults, for example. If this is true, I think we should make these criminals eligible for life without parole at any age.
I’m not sure that the kid in this recent case fits into that category, since the evidence seems so murky at this point.
Perhaps this is one of those times where the needs of society exceeds the “rights” of an individual. Cruel as it may seem to charge and prosecute him with murder, he did (allegedly) kill two people. I think the juvenile justice system is equipped to protect, educate and perhaps rehabilitate the child and offer back to him whatever parts of his life can be salvaged.
Again - I agree with this. I also believe that Legislatures don’t respond to problems until they’ve become huge in the eyes of the voting public. And reform of penal code generally comes very low on that level. Reform, not simply tacking on a one-size-fits-all fix, like a Three Strikes law, or other mandatory sentencing statutes.
This year, if anything is going to be fixed locally, it might be SSM. But the Dems are fracturing, already, and it doesn’t look good. Any shot for the issues I am exercised about: budgetary matters, legislative reform of the Senate and Assembly, and more openess in the budget process have likely gone down the drain.
Sorry, but this kids testimony might get nuked in 10 seconds with a decent expert witness. Child testimony is barely credible to begin with, and child testimony when alone with two cops - worthless (assuming defense does their job).
Do they have more than the confession (prints on the rifle, for example)? Will the kid claim to have been abused by the father and the tenant? Let defense offer that it was self defense against child abuse and watch the kid walk.
Woah.
That interview is so wrong in so many ways-- more like a lost script from the tv show American Gothic, than something from real life.
Or a really bad episode of “Law and Order”-- Gads.
Whatever the hell happened to said 8-year-old, at this point it seems clear that no matter what happens, he will end up truly ruined and fucked. I can’t see how the system in place there could possibly make things better for anybody.
Doesn’t really make sense to me either. I suspect the idea behind it is that the kid somehow demonstrated a very remarkable maturity and ability to think rationally and logically. He would have had to demonstrate a very mature and methodical forethought and planning for the crime.
I think it’s highly unlikely, but I am willing to believe there are children out there who have a maturity that is way beyond their years and the capacity to fully understand the seriousness and consequences of a heinous crime. I think it would be astronomically rare though. Rare like when you hear about an 8-year-old going to college (even then such a kid probably still has a child’s emotional maturity, despite an advanced ability for rational, intellectual reasoning).
For example, of an eight year old said: “I hated him, he took my X-box, so I shot my dad!” I would think that was fucked up, but I wouldn’t necessarily think the kid fully understood the scope of his actions and how very undoable it was.
If an eight year old said: “I sneaked up behind them and shot them both in the back. Then I shot them in the head to be sure they were dead.” That would scare the crap out of me because the coup-de-grace execution at the end implies a whole other level of maturity and understanding. And when I say it would “scare me”, I mean it would scare me in the way that I’d wonder if there is such a thing as demonic possession, because how else would a child have that kind of cold-blooded awareness?
“At one point, the boy told authorities he had been mad at his father. He said he was supposed to bring home some papers from school earlier in the week and got spanked by his stepmother at his father’s request because he didn’t.”
So, (he’s says knee-jerk ready to go) not only do we have a gun-control thread, but a corporal punishment thread all in one.
“I hated him [my dad], he took my X-box, so I shot him.”
Maybe the 8 year old thought that he would be given a nicer dad? One that would let him keep his goodies, even after misbehavin?
Such an 8 year old would have demonstrated knowledge that being dead is a permanent condition, but otherwise still fail to demonstrate good reasoning skills as to what would actually happen if he killed his dad…
I would not charge my hypothetical 8-year-old as an adult killer, however. (Ick. What a tragic scenario.)
My memory for details is very bad but I do remember a guy in California who, at a young age, killed his grandparents. He was institutionalized until he was 18 (I think) and was then given his freedom, along with some sort of document attesting to his complete rehabilitation down to the statement that he would never kill again. He ended up in Santa Cruz, CA, living with his mother. He posed as a cop and picked up for questioning any number of hippie girls who were hitchhiking. (this was early to mid 1960s IIRC) He killed those girls in various ways, none very pleasant; he had a few favorites he buried in his mom’s back yard, keeping back the head of one so he could talk to it when he was feeling low. He killed his mom and a friend of hers and stuffed them into a closet in her apartment. Eventually the smell got bad enough for some neighbors to call the police and things unraveled for the guy. I believe he is still in a California prison and is willing to give interviews to qualified persons. Rehab clearly failed for this person and I believe similar stories can be found. So, I would take a very careful look at this eight year old kid; I don’t believe every one can be rehabilitated nor do I believe that everyone wants to be rehabilitated.
I can’t remember the name of the guy I yammered about above; if anyone knows it, I wish they might post it. I and an uncle of mine owned a Shell service station in Santa Cruz at the time he was on his killing crusade and from what was published about his physical size and the car he drove, we agreed that he had, on occasion, been a customer of ours.
Do we know how long after he was picked up at the scene the interview took place? I’d have expected an 8 yr old to be babbling like a babe for at least the next 3 days after being arrested, so if this video was taken fairly quickly, the boy does seem to be showing remarkable composure. Maybe they just wanted to get his behaviour recorded before he was ‘coached’ into acting more appropriately?
Thank you. I admitted my memory was poor but now I see I was off by several years. I don’t at all remember that he turned himself in and I don’t believe his total was the six he was convicted of killing. As I recall, and I do have a poor memory, there were several more than six who simply disappeared in the general area of Santa Cruz. Not to say he did kill them, but I think he was suspected of killing more than six. Again with the poor memory thing.
I heard on the news last night that the St. John’s boy’s mother is going to get/keep custody, and the boy will be allowed two days with Mom for Thanksgiving.
Oh, and if he didn’t want his dad to suffer, he should have chosen a larger caliber.
So is there any real, objective evidence besides the (forced/scared) confession of the boy - as has been mentioned, fingerprints, a trace test, all the lab stuff that’s shown on TV? Did they find him with the smoking gun in his hand bent over the bodies? Or did the police simply arrest him because he was on the scene of the crime?
When I asked the question elsewhere, about the stereotype of cop shows and crime novels that the police arrests whoever happens to be around at the crime scene and immediately stops collecting evidence, instead simply pressuring the suspect into a confession, I was assured that Real Life doesn’t work like that, it’s very different. But it seems the police have a strong conviction, although they release … a video of the confession. So they don’t have physical evidence, since they didn’t release that?
I also wonder how adult friends and relatives of the father know that the boy wasn’t abused. How would they know what happens behind closed door in a family, given the tradition of not interfering in other families (and the still widespread acceptance of corporal punishment in the US, as evidenced even on this board)?
For that matter, if the child is tried as murder (and not simply accidental killing - if he did it at all), will he be sentenced to prison time or be killed by the state?
I also wonder why so many posters demand a new law/new procedure for one case. Yes, if the story is true and an 8-year-old boy did premediate and cold-bloodedly kill two people with full intent and knowledge of the consequences, then that is quite seriously. But one child in a population of about 270 mil. doesn’t need a new law, I think, just an exception in sentencing.
