Wow, 12 year old kills playmate and gets 26 years.

[MRT144]

HES NANCY ****ING GRACE WITH A **** AND BALLS!!! OPEN YOUR ****ING EYES!!!

NANCY SLOWWHAND GRACE!

[SlowwHand]

I do always, but you've got this wall built that won't let you consider it.

[OzzyKP]

My name sure has been brought up a lot in a thread I haven't looked at yet.... but ok since everyone is dying (no pun intended) to know what I think of this I shall impart my wisdom:

All trials, be they of adults or youth try to ascertain not only the facts of what happened, but the state of the accused. Accidents are treated different than pre-meditated murder as are murders done in a fit of rage. The insanity defense is used in some cases to demonstrate a person was, at that moment or in general, lacking in full competence, reason and understanding of their actions (poorly worded, but you get the point).

The mental state of the accused is and should be assessed in every criminal trial. So why should things be any different for a juvenile? Why should this murder trial be treated any different from any other murder trial?

If the court determines that the accused was in his right mind, understands the difference between right & wrong, and made a willful pre-meditated decision to stab the other kid 34 times, then yes he should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law just like anyone else convicted of such a henious crime.

If the court finds that he is or was of diminished capacity and lacked a full understanding of what he was doing and the consequences of it then that should absolutely be taken into consideration and the penalty lessened - just like it would be for any adult.

There is nothing special about his birthdate that should weigh upon this case.

I think it is assinine to judge the capacity of this individual based on a few paragraphs posted on an Internet forum and say you know better than the court who listened to testimony and saw evidence and talked to this person face to face (potentially). To assume that just because you know someone's birthdate you know everything about him and can tell from that information alone whether someone is mentally competent or not is ridiculous on its face.

The court is set up to assess on an individual level whether someone is guilty of a crime and involved in that guilt is a determination of that person's mental state. It is about that person not about your 12-year-old son, not about my hazy memory of myself at 12, not about some concocted statistics about the aggrigate of people across the country who happen to share his age, no, the trial is about that person - as all trials should be.

I don't understand what is so confusing to everyone. So I'll state it again, if he understood what he was doing then he is guilty and should be treated like other guilty people. If he didn't understand what he was doing, then he should be treated like others who don't understand what they were doing.

Case closed.

[SlowwHand]

Yeah.

[MRT144]

I MOTION FOR AN APPEAL!

[Lorizael]

Excellent post, OzzyKP.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by nostromo
Am I the only one who thought, based on the title of the thread, that the boy had killed a Playboy Playmate?

Then throw away the key, exceptions must be made sometimes!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lonestar
I can't see how you can get to age 12 in this country and not have killing=bad consequences drilled into your head.

Honestly, it doesn't matter what you think. It is a scientifically proven fact that the part of the brain in which judgement calls and understanding consequences is undeveloped in younger minds. This is why children do so many stupid things or things that they know they will get into trouble for.

While we only understood the scientific basis behind this recently, it has long been known to be the case that children often do not fully comprehend the anture of their actions. That's why, in a more civilized time, we created reform schools for jouvenal defendants.

Finally, there is the completely ignored fact by you and other conservatives, that your PUNISHMENT!!!!!!! fetish makes society more dangerous for all of us. God forbid that many of us don't want to be harmed because you have a fetish for making sure that not one guilty person doesn't get his just rewards. This is one of the reasons our society is so much more dangerous to live in than other societies.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arrian
And what exactly do we do with a 38 year old who has been in prison/mental institution for 26 years? Good question.

-Arrian

With this one, I hope we put him back.

[Sikander]

We need an Island of the Misfit Toyboys for these sorts of cases.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Sikander
We need an Island of the Misfit Toyboys for these sorts of cases.

like that book...planet of the apes!

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Honestly, it doesn't matter what you think. It is a scientifically proven fact that the part of the brain in which judgement calls and understanding consequences is undeveloped in younger minds. This is why children do so many stupid things or things that they know they will get into trouble for.

There is a moral difference between a 12 year old doing a generic "stupid thing" and planning out and carrying through the killing of a buddy. If you can't see that, you're even more far gone than I had suspected.

[MRT144]

the **** wouldn't have died if his parents had made a respawn point...

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Excellent post, OzzyKP.

Thanks

[Arrian]

I'd like to second that, Ozzy. Good post

-Arrian