QUITE OFTEN, a minor commits a murder, and is charged AS AN ADULT. How is that fair? If a person is of a certain age, they ARE a minor and that should not be set aside. One reason for that theory is that the rational part of a human brain is not fully developed until about the age of 25 (or in the case of moonbats - never).
I can think of one case in which a 14 year old boy was playing catch with his 8 year old neighbor with a baseball. The ball hit the girl in the head and she was bleeding.. and crying.. and screaming. The boy took her inside his house, and she would not screaming so he tried knocking her out. This led to her death. Obviously this killing was not pre-meditated and therefore not 1st degree murder - and he was a minor.. yet he was charged with 1st degree murder as an adult at age 14. The boy also had a brain injury to his frontal lobe which makes him even more unable to be thinking rationally. This was about 20 years ago. The mother of the little girl is NUTS. Everytime there is a hearing for resentencing, parole, etc. this woman puts on a big show to prevent the guy from being released. I wonder if this woman realizes that she is destroying that guy's life and his mother's life. Although the woman is wrong, she has a right to ASK that the guy not be released. The problem is.. the court keeps siding with HER and keeping the guy in prison!
Let me point something out. The murder was not premeditated, he should have been charged with 2nd degree murder. He was charged and convicted of 1st degree murder. That trial was in error. It should have been ruled a mistrial and re-done. It was not. Once convicted, the verdict should have been thrown out. There is then the law of "double jeopardy" in which you can't charge a person twice for the same act. So on that technicality, he should have been released 20 years ago. What he really needed was to be put in a mental hospital. Anyway, the guy has been a model inmate for the past 20 years.. and yet none of that seems to matter to the courts because of the pleas of the mother of the victim. That is not fair nor just.
Compare that to the case of Jon Benet Ramsey. I'm not going to re-hash that case again.. I have battled it out on Facebook which resulted in that account being disabled. Here are just a few things people are generally unaware of. Long before the murder, Burke intentionally hit JBR in the head with a golf club. On the very day of the murder, Burke smeared his own feces on JBR's Christmas Candy, and left a grapefruit sized ball of his own shit in her bed. While I personally don't think he intended to kill her, he did intentionally tie her up and beat her, etc. The one blow to her head cracked her skull, and then it became a murder. I don't feel like debating this case, Burke killed her.. period.
But then, why wasn't Burke ever charged? There is a reason for that. at the time of the murder, Burke was 9 years and 11 months old. One month away from being 10 years old. In Colorado, you cannot charge a person under the age of 10 with a murder. Burke's father was very well connected with the authorities in Boulder Colorado, and he did his best to protect Burke.. and succeeded. By the way, the mother Patsy wrote that ridiculous "ransom note". Here is the dilemma. The parents didn't want the boy blamed for the murder. Even if named as the murderer, he could not be charged with the murder because of his age. The real crime here is the corrupt authorities, the incompetent investigators, and the stupid laws.
There is yet another issue with this case. While it is true that Burke murdered his sister.. he was never charged with it.. and yet, there have been TV shows made blatantly naming Burke as the murderer. That is blatant libel, slander, and defamation. Burke and his father are suing.. but will they win? Probably not. They should win. But won't.
There are far too many problems with the judicial system that result in guilty people getting off.. while in other cases, other people are unjustly punished or even falsely convicted.
In the case I often refer to, the many wasn't just unjustly punished, he didn't commit the crime! To re-summarize that case, a group of people spent 12 years pulling various stunts and schemes to destroy that man's life. Nothing they did worked. The final scheme to frame him was to drug the man into an unconscious state, and commit a murder in his own apartment (and breaking the sliding bolt lock on his terrace door to plant more evidence after the police left). Ironically, even THAT didn't destroy this man. He is in prison, but like Martha Stewart in prison.. making lemonade out of lemons. He enjoys life and people and can't be defeated.
