Old enough to plan and commit murders, old enough to be charged and tried for murder.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2024
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Devil's advocate. Then why is it even possible to be charged as a child with murder? Murder by definition involves planning. If we're going to try every kid who commits a type of crime as an adult, why do we even have a separate juvenile justice system?
Murder by definition involves planning.
False. If this were true, "premeditated murder" would be redundant.
If somebody comes home to find their lover in bed with a stranger and shoots both of them to death, those were both murders, and they were not planned for.
Kids can very much plan a murder, as this one did. He planned to smuggle a gun into school, get out of class to go get the gun, and then re-enter the class for the shooting.
It went sideways when he was locked out of his intended target, but that doesn't mean he didn't plan it and, in fact, started planning when he was a year younger.
Here's another: if the child is responsible enough to be charged as an adult, does that mean the parent wasn't required to be responsible?
I propose(not really): Double Adult-ardy.
That looks bad now that I typed it out, but it's supposed to be like double jeopardy... But again, not really. If a teen is committing one of the worst crimes an adult could possibly commit, and it's so callous, there's a point of no return. Where that point is, I don't know, and of course younger would get even murkier. I'd say obviously the parent could still be culpable as in any accessory to crime, though.
If we treat the symptom as aggressively as possible, maybe we can ignore the disease until the next one.
Tomorrow?
I wonder if The Times Editorial Board would be running this article if it were a black teen.
They wouldn't.
Because he would have been killed on the scene.
So, no, obviously he's not an adult. That said he's been armed, trained (Even if inadvertently) to be effective at killing adults.
So what do you do? do you slap him on the wrist because his pubescent mind isn't fully ready for the responsibilities of adulthood? Obviously his family is incapable of keeping him out of trouble, One might even consider them to be a bad influence. The kid isn't evil but he's been programmed that way. How do we even address that in a safe way? Obviously the parents and the close family need to be held accountable. But what does that leave this scatterbrain brain scrambled little kid who's already showing a propensity to take lives?
I don't think anyone is advocating for a "slap on the wrist." The U.S. criminal justice system is the most draconian in the West, and doesn't do "slaps on the wrist," unless you're in a particular economic or social classes.
IMO, ideally, he would be sentenced for as long as it takes to rehabilitate him. Could be 5 years, 10 years, 30 years, or never, IDK, I'm not a psychologist. But, the U.S. prison system isn't really designed for rehabilitation either.
Is not*
Edit:
It's a punitive system, not a rehabilitative system. Americans still believe that punishment is the only way to handle deviancy. Most believe the punishments are not hard enough, this is the "tough on crime" take conservatives have been running on for decades.
The point of interest is what happens when those extremists are accused of crimes. Suddenly, exceptions should be carved out for them.
Yeah, we need to be asking what the purpose of trying the child in question as an adult here is:
Rehabilitation - I think the juvenile system would probably be better suited for this purpose, so no.
Deterrence - I don't think the knowledge that they might be tried as an adult has much bearing on their decision to commit the crime. I'd be willing to wager that people who do this sort of thing don't much care what the consequences are. They've given up on themselves and their own lives.
Removal - This strikes me as the main motivator. If the system has no way to rehabilitate, and recidivism is likely, then what other option is there?
Retribution - As much as the US loves its retribution, usually it's less keen to enact it on children. I'm sure some people would be happy about this aspect though.
Retaliation - I'll let y'all judge off of the tone of the rest of the comments for this one.
I would argue that if you reduce liability on a child, you should increase liability on those who take that liability away, i.e., the parents. That’s the whole point. Children are less liable because the parents guide them. Thus that liability shouldn’t be removed, it should be displaced.
While we work out how to get fewer guns into peoples hands we can put the full weight of the law on the criminals and their parents involved in these terrible crimes.
Anybody that’s ever had a 14 year old teenage boy under their roof knows how absolutely idiotic they can be. With all those hormones pumping through their bodies I’m not sure how it isn’t an automatic insanity plea. Couple that with less than ideal family dynamic it’s amazing these type of things aren’t happening daily.
Long story short, no 14 yo should have access to a firearm. Period.
So the trump attempted shooter could have been underaged in order to avoid being tried as an adult? Bollocks!
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