Two cases of injustice?
A Few years ago there were o two murder cases in the news that seem to defy common sense.
1. The Skakel trial. Skakel was accused (and convicted) of killing a girl when he was fifteen. Skakel was charged as an adolescent on the accepted grounds that an adolescent lacks the degree of free will to justify charging him as an adult.
But years later Skakel was trie and sentenced as an adult—with adult punishment—on the grounds that he was an adult and therefore too old to serve time in the facility which adolescents are sentenced to.
The reason given was something like "the prescribed punishment for an adolescent murderer would be inappropriate for an adult".
Isn’t this a form of ex post facto prosecutorial action?
Was there any reasonable justification for ignoring the fact that Skakel was an adolescent at the time of the killing?
2. In another pair of cases (I don't remember the names), a prosecutor prosecuted two different defendants (actually a man in one case and two boys in the other) for the same murder. He acknowledged that if the defendant(s) in either case committed the murder, then the defendant(s) in the other case couldn't have.
Why isn't this automatically "reasonable doubt" in both cases? (at least in the mind of the prosecutor, who is ethically bound not to prosecute a defendant for whom he has reasonable doubt?
IANAL but the Canadian system, for example, tries someone for a crime committed when under 18 as a juvenile, even if the trial happens much later. As you point out the crime itself and any associated guilt is that of a minor. Canada does however have (had?) the option to try someone as an adult if the crime is particularly heinous, adult in nature or whatever the criteria are. Not sure about NY State law, but I presume it has the same provision (as does most of USA?) to try a juvenile as an adult depending on the circumstances of the crime. However, I don’t see “it was long ago” as a valid reason for an adult charge. I would have expected that the logical result would be the juvenile sentence would be served in an adult facility by a much older adult. Obviously New York law allowed the adult charge, since I have trouble believing that among Skakel’s problems would be inadequate legal representation. I’m sure every aspect was contested.
Similarly for the second case - while the prosecutor may have been ethically, morally, and intellectually lacking, I presume the issue is something the defendants’ lawyers should raise in court - assuming the charges were simultaneous, not following up one failed prosecution with another. If A is charged, found not guilty, and as a result B is charged, presumably “A was tried and found not guilty” is a pretty good rebuttal to the suggestion “But it could have been A, not my client B.”