I've blogged about this previously, so you may know that I feel very strongly that trying juveniles as adult is the wrong thing to do.
This detail is particularly troublesome:
The weapon was a youth model 20-gauge shotgun, designed for use by children, that belonged to the boy, according to investigators.We could certainly debate the second amendment on this one, but personally I'm just hoping states will begin to raise the minimum age to be tried as an adult back up to a reasonable level (or eliminate them completely).
The Pennsylvania code (42 Pa. C. S. Sec. 6302) is silent on where a child found guilty as an adult would be incarcerated. Perhaps some legal-types out there can shed some light on this.
3 comments:
An interesting article on the problems that jailers are currently having in housing the youth at a facility designed for adults: Jail Can't Accomodate Slaying Suspect.
Interestingly, the article states that he is not allowed visitors other than his attorney.
Slamdunk,
What a great article--thanks for posting it. This illustrates one of the major problems with trying children as adults (besides, of course, the philosophical ones).
I posted about this case, too, on our public criminology blog: http://contexts.org/pubcrim/
Did you hear that the 8-year-old Arizona boy (now age 9), has pleaded guilty to negligent homicide? Crazy world. I hope these cases at least make us question our policies on children and crime.
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