If I’m not mistaken, the U.S. court system - in particular, the feds - generally charge someone as an adult if they have attained adult age at the time of arrest - even if he was a juvenile at the time of the crime.
Example: John Doe, a 14-year old, robs a store with a gun. Ten years later, the cops finally catch him as a 24-year old adult. He is now charged as an adult - and receives the heavier sentence an adult would - because he was an adult when arrested, even though a minor when committing the crime.
Assuming that is actually the case - and maybe I am mistaken which makes the whole thread moot - what is the logic behind this? He had the maturity of a 14-year old when he did the crime.
As a society, we love to punish. On the whole, prosecutors are reelected/appointed based on their “success” record, which includes length of service when it comes to the “bad guys”. The private prison system pours shit-tons of money into promoting the need to put away as many people as possible for as long as possible.
When you add these things together, examples like the one above will occur over and over again.
Yes, but he could be given the sentence that a juvenile would. If, let’s say, a 14-year old would have gotten three years for armed robbery but a 24-year old gets twenty years, then he should have gotten three, not twenty. (Hypothetical case but you get the idea)
He’s not a juvenile anymore. He can make all his own decisions regarding his case, he can’t be sentenced to spend time in a juvenile facility, the juvenile courts are not meant to deal with adults at all, and any sentence will not affect an adult in the same way it would a juvenile. I don’t see any reason to sentence someone much differently for the same crime as an adult or minor in general.
What would the feds do if they caught him when he was 14? or 17? In many states he could tried as an adult even when he was a minor.
What if we make it a bit more extreme, just for hypothetical’s sake? Say a 9-year old steals something and the cops don’t catch and charge him until he’s 39. (Not that that would happen, but that’s legally within the parameters of this sort of principle.) Should he be treated as if he had committed theft at 39?
This is going to vary by state, but if I steal something at the age of 9, I have committed a juvenile offense. I don’t believe it upgrades when I turn 18.
From here, an interstate compact on a Florida site: “Child” or “juvenile” or “youth” means any person under the age of 18 or any person who is alleged to have committed a violation of law occurring prior to the time that person reached the age of 18 years.
Bolding mine. A juvenile offense is a juvenile offense.
One of the key issues by Michael Skakel in his appeal of his murder charges against Martha Moxley was that he should have been tried in juvenile court. He was 15 when he allegedly committed the crime and he wasn’t arrested until he was 40. He was originally arraigned in juvenile court, but the case was later transferred to regular court.
After 30 years the statute of limitations would be up for stealing and practically any crime short of murder.
I do not believe charging an adult with an adult offense for a crime committed as a minor is the right way to do things. Nor do I believe that it should be handled through the juvenile courts. A simple way to improve things is to make the fact that a crime was committed by a child a mitigating factor in any sentencing. If there are reasons why someone’s criminal behavior as a child should affect their sentencing as an adult the state can try to make that case. The default should not be an adult sentence for a crime committed as a minor.
The main reason it’s applied is public uproar, but the idea is that some minors act with the capacity of an adult when committing a crime. Some states have age cutoffs I think, but the main consideration should be the person’s ability to form the criminal intent of an adult.
Should a 17 year-old be able to commit murder, and then the law be limited to holding them in a juvenile facility until age 21?