Yahoo News reports that the prosecutors have offered a plea deal to the 8-year-old boy charged with murder in the shooting deaths of his father and another man. We've discussed this case recently and when the shooting first happened. One thing everyone seemed to agree upon was that the police didn't handle it exactly right. What about the lawyers?
County Attorney Criss Candelaria wrote that he has "tendered a plea offer to the juvenile's attorneys that would resolve all the charges in the juvenile court contingent on the results of the mental health evaluations."
The defense attorney Benjamin Brewer expressed concern that the prosecutors may be intending to drop charges now that could be resurrected later in adult court when the boy is older. Candelaria denied this, insisting that if the boy is found incompetent because of his age, he wouldn't fit the definition of a mentally disordered person and no treatment would be available.
"Such a result denies the victims and public of any sense of justice for these heinous murders," Candelaria wrote.
And, according to Candeleria, such a result would also deny the boy much needed psychological help, although I don't see how. If the kid is found incompetent to stand trial, does it really matter if the incompetence is due to age? Would that deny his getting medical or psychiatric help?
As far as his mental state goes, the following piece of the puzzle came out:
Police reports say the boy told a state Child Protective Services worker that his 1,000th spanking would be his last.
My liberal bleeding heart goes out to a little boy who says something like that. How about yours? My liberal bleeding heart goes out to all the other boys just like him who don't get around to committing their crimes until they're about ten years older than this precocious kid. How about yours? Doesn't this case illustrate the need for considering an abusive childhood as mitigating the culpability, in the name of justice?
What's your opinion?
Showing posts with label mitigating circumstances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mitigating circumstances. Show all posts
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Another Death Penalty Case
An 8-year-old is being charged with first degree murder. Do you think that finally even the most adamant capital punishment proponents will admit to mitigating circumstances? Where the mental insanity of the criminal doesn't budge, where the abusive childhood doesn't phase, can we expect the age of this defendant to finally soften those hard hearts?
CNN reports on this horrible incident which took place in Arizona.
It's a crime that police officers in a small eastern Arizona community can hardly fathom yet have to deal with: an 8-year-old charged in the fatal shootings of his father and another man.
On Friday, a judge determined there was probable cause to show that the boy fatally shot his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos with a .22-caliber rifle. The boy faces two counts of premeditated murder.
FBI statistics show instances of children younger than 11 committing homicides are very rare. According to recent FBI supplementary homicide reports, there were at least three such cases each year in 2003, 2004 and 2005; there were at least 15 in 2002. More recent statistics weren't available, nor were details of the cases.
On The Gun Guys blog, which I'm going to have to visit more often since they seem to share some of my own feelings, there's this comment which I might have written myself.
Unfortunately, the AP story did not give any details about the rifle itself, who owned it, what make and model, and more importantly, how an 8-year-old boy was able to gain access to it.
The availability of guns, once again seems to be an issue here. In spite of the passionate denials on the part of some of our commenters, I continue to be unconvinced. What is their defense, that there are a million gazillion guns out there and the tragic incidents are rare? Is it that guns in the hands of responsible people do more good than the harm done by the irresponsible? Or have I missed something?
The other issue in this story is, of course, the death penalty. I don't imagine that the blood thirstiest of capital punishment lovers would want the death penalty in a case like this. But what about the 12-year-old? Where do we draw the line with age? I admit it's a tough call. And what about the abusive childhood like Skyler had and so many others? Does that count for nothing?
What's your opinion? About gun availability, I honestly don't know. About capital punishment, I'm against it.
CNN reports on this horrible incident which took place in Arizona.
It's a crime that police officers in a small eastern Arizona community can hardly fathom yet have to deal with: an 8-year-old charged in the fatal shootings of his father and another man.
On Friday, a judge determined there was probable cause to show that the boy fatally shot his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39, of San Carlos with a .22-caliber rifle. The boy faces two counts of premeditated murder.
FBI statistics show instances of children younger than 11 committing homicides are very rare. According to recent FBI supplementary homicide reports, there were at least three such cases each year in 2003, 2004 and 2005; there were at least 15 in 2002. More recent statistics weren't available, nor were details of the cases.
On The Gun Guys blog, which I'm going to have to visit more often since they seem to share some of my own feelings, there's this comment which I might have written myself.
Unfortunately, the AP story did not give any details about the rifle itself, who owned it, what make and model, and more importantly, how an 8-year-old boy was able to gain access to it.
The availability of guns, once again seems to be an issue here. In spite of the passionate denials on the part of some of our commenters, I continue to be unconvinced. What is their defense, that there are a million gazillion guns out there and the tragic incidents are rare? Is it that guns in the hands of responsible people do more good than the harm done by the irresponsible? Or have I missed something?
The other issue in this story is, of course, the death penalty. I don't imagine that the blood thirstiest of capital punishment lovers would want the death penalty in a case like this. But what about the 12-year-old? Where do we draw the line with age? I admit it's a tough call. And what about the abusive childhood like Skyler had and so many others? Does that count for nothing?
What's your opinion? About gun availability, I honestly don't know. About capital punishment, I'm against it.
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