13 year old trialled as an adult over murder of 2 year old brother and sexual assault

[Deleted]

It's a tragedy, all that has happened in his life, his siblings lifes and his mothers life, atleast we can agree so far (I hope), no matter the outcome of his trial this, and every other case that resembles this situation is a permanent stain on our society and the judical system we practice. There's never going to be a winning side, because someones life has already been destroyed, in fact in this case atleast three lifes are already horribly wrecked. We can't change that, unfortunetly. But we, as bystanders often forgett the grey zones that lead up to situations like this.


1. Everyone has the right to create life and foster children

No matter where you come from, no matter your situation in life you have the right to create life and keep this new life until the situation for this newborn is beyond repair or help. It didn't help these kids that their mother was a drug addict, it most certainly didn't help their mother was a child of her own, 14 year old is no age to create life, even if our bodies are capable of such. Is this due to our legacy?
Children should never have to stay in a bad upbringing, not in a society that claims to be as advanced as ours. We can gloat all we want over the less fortunate in our world, those who never try to achiev anything and just sit down and vegetate, but a child can't fix anything on its own, it needs a safe haven, a family to learn what's right and what is wrong. If our basic needs aren't fullfilled as children we never develop the social understanding and compassion we need to function together with others, even in the most primordial versions of human society has children been guided towards what was right and wrong, if no one is there to teach, a human doesn't know. Your upbringing have taught you everything about right and wrong, don't claim you knew it out of thin air, because you simply did not.

What could have stopped this from happening is to have these children removed from their mother, early if not at birth. These children was born into hell, they can't form right from wrong on their own and certainly didn't get much help from their mother or family. This is apparent in many cases where children who grow up in horrible situation turns out for the worst or are scared for the rest of their lifes to the point they have nightmares every night, can't function at a job, trust issues, don't understand our social rules and laws (the list can be made long).
This "mother" should have gotten treatment early on, I'm sure she did not live a wonderful life, perhaps even she should have been taken form her family at a young age, they were obviously not fit to foster a child either. Does everyone have the right to bring life into this world and foster it? from a physiological (or divine I guess) stand point yes, but this is due to how we are built. From the view of our society not everyone is fit to bear a innocent life into this world, shouldn't we stop that before another life is ruined from start?


2. Our judical system is torn between two disciplines

As long as the modern judical system has existed it has been tormented by the tearing between the two main disciplines that exist, through our moral and social stand points; Punish and rehabilitate. The two disciplines couldn't be futher away from each other and contain mixed messages when they opperate together, are we to punish criminals because they did something deemed immoral or wrong (as in outlawed) or do we want to rehabilitate them to not doing it again and live normal, socialy adapted lifes?

As many metaphors that can be pulled out of the law system that exists today, I'm sure there isn't enough space here on the forum and I sure do not have time to sit write them all down either (for that matter I don't think anyone would read it). But the main problem now will be, which discipline do we want this child to be tried towards. We can't find a middle ground for our judical system, we will have to choose one of the disciplines one day. I'll leave this section with this thought:

If we work for a "better" society, where the "greater good" is in the interest of everyone. Execution or labour camps for the severe criminals is the only choice, they have choosen to not be a part of our society, they are branded outlaws, should we care for those who do not work for the greater good of our society? In a world like this resources would not be spend on "saving" criminals, it would be spend on building a greater society for everyone participating in it's development. Criminals would be our plague and you can't cure diseases, only exterminate them.
On the other side we could live in a society where medical care, psychological research and pharmaceuticals would work to save every singel person, where every crime commited would we viewed as a social innability which would be cureable. But in this world, punishment can't exist, because our goal is to make them "whole" and functioning in our world again.

3. We are not in a position to argue about life and death

This argument, where religion has it's largest hold in my oppinion, is flawed. We, as humans do not have divine right to judge if someone lives or dies for their behavior, crimes or diseases. What ever you believe in this argument can't be upheld because we as humans wage war. As soon as we pick up a rifle, hand gun, machette or whatever to kill another human has already been flung out the window. Our goverments has already taken a stance on this subject and that is that we are allowed to play god. We kill thousands of people, every day in different wars, wether it be "war on drugs" or in the middle east. We are ready to respond to violence with ultimate force, our judical system can't bypass that.

In a world where war is acceptable, life and death is not a divine right, it's in the hands of the people with the biggest guns, our goverments. It might just be statistic to the most of you, but every time a civilian dies, it's not just a casualty it's that argument lost. Our world doesn't practice divine right when it comes to life or death, it will never do.


On topic

Whatever he will be tried as, it's a tradgedy that this happened, I wish it never did. I wish this was the worst case I have heard, sadly though, It isn't even close.

[s_bushido]

That's a lot of noble words...

"The right to create life?" His mother was raped when she was 12. If she'd had any say in it, it wouldn't have been...you know...rape. I hope you aren't suggesting that "certain people" should be forced to have abortions? We already have a system in place to remove children from unfit families, but as with many things in this case, it seems like the whole lot of them fell through the cracks. And now it's too late to prevent him from harming others. All that can be done is to prevent him from hurting anyone else.

I don't know what your agenda with all that divine right and "war is acceptable" talk...but I'm not even going to touch it...

[Deleted]

So many people in this thread are so self righteous. Judging and condemning people too death, thinking they have the right to decide if one lives or dies. Wake up, you don't have that right, nobody does.

He is alive, we don't have the right to decide if he should live or die just as he didn't have the right to take his brothers life. You'll say "He killed someone first so all bets are off!" That's bullshit and an excuse, you're killing a person, you're seeking revenge to sate your flawed view of justice. There is no Justice in killing a child, their is no justice in killing anyone. There is only more unnecessary death, more loss of life to be added to a already tragic event.

But even then you don't care, because your hands are free of the burden. You don't have to take responsibility for it. You all find it so easy to say someone should die when you'll have no part to play in it. You people blind yourselves with primitive ideals of justice.

Sure! Where do you live? Let's send that boy to your neighborhood!
I would like to see how would you tolerate such person hanging around your kids or living near your place, even after "special treatment".

A lot of people can say that it's unjust to kill a child, neither do I, but i could not bear the idea of such individual, even after treatment, hanging around my friends or my family.

No, my hands are not free of burden, i have others i care for.

[Gohan29]

if you look at the pictures of the kid he doesnt look like he feels sorry for what he did. like no emotion at all.
classic signs of a sociopath

[Melanieshaman]

yes, tried as an adult.

maybe not prison time til he's 18, but definitely in a psychiatric ward under CLOSE observation.

[Deleted]

That's a lot of noble words...

"The right to create life?" His mother was raped when she was 12. If she'd had any say in it, it wouldn't have been...you know...rape. I hope you aren't suggesting that "certain people" should be forced to have abortions? We already have a system in place to remove children from unfit families, but as with many things in this case, it seems like the whole lot of them fell through the cracks. And now it's too late to prevent him from harming others. All that can be done is to prevent him from hurting anyone else.

I don't know what your agenda with all that divine right and "war is acceptable" talk...but I'm not even going to touch it...

(sorry for my late answer, had to work).

I think you are taking it a bit to... offensive? It's theory. Noble words, what do you want me to say; off with his head? Whatever we say here, won't have an impact on the case at hand, it's all theory and oppinions

No I do not suggest forced abortion, I don't know how you read into that, I tried to be as clear as I could to be honest. There are many children who are saved from horrible lifes thanks to our social systems, the point is that they often let people fall through because our society is built on the foundation that everyone has the right to have children and care for those even though clearly unfit, so by the time children are removed from families that are unfit to raise them it's more often than not already to late, the children are scared for life, something you can't repair.
I'm not blaming the mother, she lived a horrible life of drugs and violence, on top of that she was raped, but would the children been better of in foster care? most certainly. Would that have devestated the mother more? Most certainly, but atleast the children would have had a chance.

You can't say "it works, but sometimes someone falls through". It means the system in fact does not work, no? It isn't the first horrible case of children abuse and horrific situations we hear, or for that matter that happens but isn't reported.


My "agenda" (if you so wish to call it, it's still theory okey, we can call it theory-agenda if you want) with the rest was how double moral is practice in our judical system, "no no can't play god about this guys life but we can wage war." Terrorists are murderers too, they deserve death, but a "normal" murderer doesn't. We can kill some for our own saftey yet others would make us less human to kill even though they are often mentaly incapable of living in our society. Many terrorists are children who are just brainwashed, in fact most are just brain washed and not sociopaths/psychopaths, yet no one wants to give them any special treatment. They should just die right?


Due to his mental scars, he will probably never understand compassion and social rules, what are our choices? Put him in jail for 10, 20, 30 years or life time? Risking him to kill others in jail, whom might not have done something severe. Lock him in a isolated room, make him into some form of human-animal due to deprevation of human contact and the fact his brain will not fully develop?
Live his life in a psych ward where he, yet again have the ability to kill others. His life is ruined, sad as it is, death is merciful in his case, he will never know love, he will never understand the beaty of space exploration, he will know cold concrete walls, he will know more pain, indifference, he will know guilt for something he doesn't understand.


Something that is known is that the human brain isn't fully developed until past the 20's (depending on who you speak to it can go late or early 20's) and the fact that the frontal cortex is not developed until last, where human compassion and empathy comes from. If we wage in Sigmund Freuds theory that unless our basic needs are met we can not advance to the next step, this boy will never fully develop. He doesn't understand it because his brain has not developed the connections needed to understand it, will it? I don't know, but from theory probably not.


Does he deserve to die? Perhaps not.
Would it be for the better? perhaps.
Are there worse criminals that deserves to die but go free? Yes.


What we should take away from cases like this isn't how we should punish, how it was handled and how we can stop him from harming anyone again (which though is partially true) but how we can stop it from happening again with different families, different situations, different lives.