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Juvenile vs Adult in Law.


Interesting that in that article the father sort of excuses the actions by saying they were just playing around. A malicious but not premeditated murder. Where as the english boys case is much harder to say not premeditated.

My point in bringing this aspect up is that we cannot really say that premeditation can only happen with a mature adult.
 
soylentgreen said:
How does that explain the comment that children lack the maturity to be premeditate a serious crime?
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This is the question you asked me, and I am reiterating that I don't believe this. I believe criminals should be judged based on their level of premeditation, which indicates their level of competence.
 
Northern Light said:
This is the question you asked me, and I am reiterating that I don't believe this. I believe criminals should be judged based on their level of premeditation, which indicates their level of competence.
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Yes, i asked that question in response to your saying
I think it should depend on the level of premeditation because that requires a degree of maturity and understanding that an immature mind would lack.
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You also said an immature mind lacks the capability to premeditate a crime. Fortunately in most cases you are correct. But then sometimes someone appears and throws that thought out the window and shows that immature minds are capable of premeditation.

I would like you to be right but unfortunately it is not. Which leaves us with the problem of what to do with a child that deliberately murders someone.
 

Just as in the abortion debate, I have made the argument that the unborn child two weeks away from normal delivery is not substantially different from the newborn baby, but it is legal at least in some olaces to kill the baby even minutes before it would be born naturally but never okay to kill the newborn. And to me that just doesn't compute rationally. NOTE: THIS IS AN EXAMPLE AND NOT INVITATION FOR AN ABORTION DEBATE.

Once one of my friends was parking downtown with a mounted police officer a few feet away. She pulled in, turned off the car, unfastened her seat belt, opened the door, saw that she was straddling the white line, so she restarted the car and backed up to position it properly. And the cop ticketed her for driving without a seat belt--she had not refastened her seat belt--and explained to her there was no give in the law to allow him to give her a warning. NOT AN INVITATION HERE FOR A SEAT BELT LAW DEBATE.

And coming back to the thread topic:

Likewise the two kids who are sexually active without legal consequences at age seventeen become illegal the day the older turns eighteen. In fact the statuatory rape that then comes into play could possibly brand the 18-yr-old as a sex offender for the rest of his/her life. Most especially if the male is the older. And to me that makes no sense at all and I can see no justice whatsoever in it.

All of this begs the question of when the law is unreasonable and how we fix it without doing away with all the GOOD mandatory penalties for such things as using a gun to commit a crime, drunk driving, etc.
 

I'm not basing maturity level on age, but level of premeditation and competence to commit a crime, which is indicated by the context of the crime committed.
 
Northern Light said:
I'm not basing maturity level on age, but level of premeditation and competence to commit a crime, which is indicated by the context of the crime committed.
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None of the links about these child murders really speak of competence at what they did. They were easily caught. It would be difficult to argue that a child of 6 or 10 could have developed maturity by that age.

Basically i agree with you but because exceptions do appear from time to time. It is not a clear cut case that we can base maturity on premeditation.
 
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