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OK well, let's stick with what we've got and the story. An 11 year old being tried as an adult.
What makes you believe that an 11 year old has the same brain, emotional, maturity, reasoning levels and life experiences as an 18 year old? I don't understand where you draw the similarities from.
A sixth grader understands the difference between right and wrong. They know the consequences for murder. They will understand the trial process if it is explained to them. Given all that, why shouldn't they be tried as an adult? An adult that met all that criteria would be declared competent to stand trial.
Most of your criteria (brain, emotional, maturity, reasoning levels and life experiences) aren't applicable to deciding what to try someone as. For instance, an 18 year-old and a 40 year-old wouldn't have the same brain, emotional, maturity, reasoning levels and life experiences. But most people think they should both be tried as adults.
It is a difficult question and calls into the debate questions concerning what the point of criminal punishment is--rehabilitation, punitive, revenge, incapacitation etc
If you put an 11 year old in with adults (beyond say tax protestors and some white collar frauds) you might as well make it a life sentence because after a few years you will have created a viscious predator
on the other hand, if some 11 year comes into my house in the middle of the night with a gun or a knife I am going to kill him just as fast as I would a 30 year old doing the same thing
What I'm saying is that an 11 year old shouldn't ever be in a position where he's tried as an adult. An 11 year old is a child.
We have laws for juveniles for a reason. They're children. A crime doesn't negate that an 11 year old is a child in our society.
.
He's a murderer who understood what he did was wrong. There's nothing that objectively seperates him from an 18 year-old offender that can be used as a criteria for deciding what court system to try him in.
I disagree. I think his age should be the only criteria they look at when deciding what court system to try him in.
Looking at other criteria may be important with a 17 year old but an 11 year old?
No way.
That's just never gonna be OK in my mind.
:2wave:
I'm definitely of the punitive/incapacitation crowd.
He consciously took two lives. He doesn't deserve his own. Plus, if you're so messed up that you're going to kill people while you're in sixth grade, I don't see that he'll ever be safe to live in the community.
15 or so years ago carjacking became a federal felony and I sat in on a session with a 13 year old who was a co-conspirator in the first such case in our area. The 13 year old was fixing to rat out the leader of the enterprise and when asked why a car jacking he noted all they had was one or two shells for their one weapon (a sawed off single shot shotgun). He noted that the three of them (the head mope about 30 and another kid) wanted to do a drive by but rationally he noted that if they missed and only had one or two shells "we could get greased if the other MF had a piece"
However, "you can do a jacking with even an empty piece"
no one could dispute the kid's logic--and he was not stupid-his mom was a high ranking administrator in the large public school system and his father was skilled blue collar craft labor.
we also figured when the kid got out of Juvi hall in about 5 years he was going to be a really serious badass with that sort of sociopathic attitude
One of the agents half joking noted they ought to just cap him and save society a few dozen armed robberies and murders
My point exactly. Childhood by and large is a construct of the Western world. We might think they're incapable of rational behavior. That doesn't mean they are.
Ummm ... just a thought - most eleven year olds would 'grease' me at a shoot-em-up computer game, and would probably do as well as me on a strategy game ('cos I'm five years older, and my reactions are probably slowing,) but I think I would have a much better idea of the real human consequences of killing someone. Logic is an important part, but not the whole of understanding. You need to have lived a little, and to have experienced things.
You're telling me a sixth grader doesn't know you go to jail if you murder someone? I find that unlikely.
My point exactly. Childhood by and large is a construct of the Western world. We might think they're incapable of rational behavior. That doesn't mean they are.
Kids are not stupid. They are very aware of right and wrong. My daughter is almost a teenage and she and her friends know exactly what is up. I asked them about this last night and they thought it was idiotic thinking that kids can't make rational decisions and that kids don't understand that shooting people is irreversible and wrong. We had a good discussion. I think that too many adults marginalize kids and treat them as little children far too long.
Not too long ago, young teenagers were having and raising kids to be healthy and productive adults.
LOLZ, I smell a double standard! :mrgreen: On another topic, loads of people are telling me that, at age 16, I am physiologically immature, and incapable of evaluating risk and danger, because my brain is not fully formed.
So which is it?
I'm not telling you anything like that. If you read my post again, you will find that I specifically used the term 'human consequences' as opposed to just 'consequences', or 'legal consequences. :2wave:
Perhaps I'm confused then. What exactly is a "human consequence?"
It's sort of like that thing that keeps us from trying kids as adults.
It's sort of like that thing that keeps us from trying kids as adults.
And that's sort of like a real definition. :lol: I googled "human consequence" and it appears to be a made up phrase. Which I have no problem with, but if I don't know the intended meaning there's not much I can reply to.
I know you are capable of nuanced thinking (unless you're like...eleven or something). Try thinking about what the word "human" implies and then put it with the word "consequence". There's your definition.
I was figuring it had to mean something else since sixth graders fully understand the consequences to humans when you kill someone.
You still haven't provided my nicely worded and very sensible request for your objective (ie, not age) criteria on the dividing line between trying someone as an adult and as a child. Did you just come here to deliver snarky one liners or are you gearing up for an actual post?
Defining a particular age that is arrived at by establishing a baseline from the statistical means of a study and adhering to that age without deviation is the very definition of objective.
What is subjective is looking at an eleven year old and allowing your emotional revulsion to his crime to dictate that all standards be abandoned in favor of balming your wounded expectations of how children should always behave by compounding the punishment with treating him as something he is not: an adult.
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