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Should these teens be tried as adults

Should the 15 and 16 year old also be tried as adults

  • yes and throw away the key

    Votes: 72 87.8%

  • no, they deserve a second chance

    Votes: 10 12.2%
  • Total voters
    82
opendebate said:
Hmmmmm. That sounds like the tone of someone in the field. Are you?
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In the field of education. Yes. I deal with kids daily. 12-18 years of age. Mentally challenged to genius. I also studied early childhood education and a lot of psychology. I am not an expert but I know quite a bit.
 
Bodhisattva said:
No. The opinionated stuff is the stuff saying that it is OK or not OK to kill a kid based off of scientific evidence that is irrelevant to a crime. A crime is committed. People looking to give excuses to others use this evidence to make their point. I find it ridiculous. I also find the DP to be cruel and unusual ridiculous.
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These are important new scientific discoveries. Of course you can ignore them, but that doesn't make them any less valid. A person's state of brain development should certainly be taken into consideration when handing out such serious penalty. Handing down the death sentence should NEVER be taken lightly and any new data should be looked at. The SC obviously takes this new data very seriously.
 
shrubnose said:
What you are talking about is a system of justice which looks only at the past,at what has happened and has no vision for the future.

I believe that we can do better than that.
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Ok, then I guess we can increase the scope of the death penalty for habitual violent crimes.
 
ChrisL said:
These are important new scientific discoveries. Of course you can ignore them, but that doesn't make them any less valid. A person's state of brain development should certainly be taken into consideration when handing out such serious penalty. Handing down the death sentence should NEVER be taken lightly and any new data should be looked at. The SC obviously takes this new data very seriously.
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It barely passed with a 5-4 Decision. Almost half the Justices didn't take it that seriously... neither do I.
 
Bodhisattva said:
In the field of education. Yes. I deal with kids daily. 12-18 years of age. Mentally challenged to genius. I also studied early childhood education and a lot of psychology. I am not an expert but I know quite a bit.
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I have read this from several sources, I am not an expert but based on my experience with boys in this age range it seems to make sense.

Scientists have identified a specific region of the brain called the amygdala which is responsible for instinctual reactions including fear and aggressive behavior. This region develops early. However, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later. This part of the brain is still changing and maturing well into adulthood.

Other specific changes in the brain during adolescence include a rapid increase in the connections between the brain cells and pruning (refinement) of brain pathways. Nerve cells develop myelin, an insulating layer which helps cells communicate. All these changes are essential for the development of coordinated thought, action, and behavior.

Changing Brains Mean that Adolescents Act Differently From Adults

Pictures of the brain in action show that adolescents’ brains function differently than adults when decision-making and problem solving. Their actions are guided more by the amygdala and less by the frontal cortex. Research has also demonstrated that exposure to drugs and alcohol before birth, head trauma, or other types of brain injury can interfere with normal brain development during adolescence.

Based on the stage of their brain development, adolescents are more likely to:

act on impulse
misread or misinterpret social cues and emotions
get into accidents of all kinds
get involved in fights
engage in dangerous or risky behavior
Adolescents are less likely to:

think before they act
pause to consider the potential consequences of their actions
modify their dangerous or inappropriate behaviors

From this source: The Teen Brain: Behavior, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
 
opendebate said:
I have read this from several sources, I am not an expert but based on my experience with boys in this age range it seems to make sense.

Scientists have identified a specific region of the brain called the amygdala which is responsible for instinctual reactions including fear and aggressive behavior. This region develops early. However, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later. This part of the brain is still changing and maturing well into adulthood.

Other specific changes in the brain during adolescence include a rapid increase in the connections between the brain cells and pruning (refinement) of brain pathways. Nerve cells develop myelin, an insulating layer which helps cells communicate. All these changes are essential for the development of coordinated thought, action, and behavior.

Changing Brains Mean that Adolescents Act Differently From Adults

Pictures of the brain in action show that adolescents’ brains function differently than adults when decision-making and problem solving. Their actions are guided more by the amygdala and less by the frontal cortex. Research has also demonstrated that exposure to drugs and alcohol before birth, head trauma, or other types of brain injury can interfere with normal brain development during adolescence.

Based on the stage of their brain development, adolescents are more likely to:

act on impulse
misread or misinterpret social cues and emotions
get into accidents of all kinds
get involved in fights
engage in dangerous or risky behavior
Adolescents are less likely to:

think before they act
pause to consider the potential consequences of their actions
modify their dangerous or inappropriate behaviors

From this source: The Teen Brain: Behavior, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
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I have been discussing this with Chris and about how this teen that shot the Aussie does not fall under most of that list.
 
Bodhisattva said:
I have been discussing this with Chris and about how this teen that shot the Aussie does not fall under most of that list.
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Awww, I thought you were discussing the 15yr in the Washington State Case
 
Bodhisattva said:
I have been discussing this with Chris and about how this teen that shot the Aussie does not fall under most of that list.
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So looking back over your post, if I may just interject myself into your conversation, it appears you think they should be tried as adults. Is that the case?
 
opendebate said:
So looking back over your post, if I may just interject myself into your conversation, it appears you think they should be tried as adults. Is that the case?
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In this case, yes. Based off of what I know. It may turn out that some evidence pops up that changes my mind, but I doubt that will happen. As an adult and facing the DP as well.

Awww, I thought you were discussing the 15yr in the Washington State Case
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Isn't this thread about the Aussie guy and the teen that shot him? About the two others being tried as well? Maybe I am debating the wrong thing... :lol:
 
Andalublue said:
I don't believe in the death penalty for anyone, in any circumstances.
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Point taken. You are opposed to the death penalty PERIOD. If you are opposed to it in all cases arguing against the death penalty for these three for specific reasons is begging the question since you should have a general reason, argument against the death penalty.

I also don't believe in mandatory sentencing at all. Either you trust your judiciary to take the right decision on the basis of the detailed assessment of each individual case, or you dispense with them altogether and hand over your judicial system entirely to politicians and their agenda-driven tariffs.
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Do you really mean that? Absolutely no minimum sentence for any crime? Do you also support no maximum sentence limit(death penalty excepted)?

For the crime of theft: Whatever the judge says.

For the crime of rape: Whatever the judge says.

For the crime of murder: Whatever the judge says.


I for one do not trust the Judaical branch to set proper sentences with that degree of latitude. Judges will impose their own opinions on what a proper sentence for reasons they pull out of their ass.

Life without the possibility of parole seems like a populist sop to those who hanker after the death penalty being applied for currently non-capital offences, but offences that nevertheless stir up the frothing outrage of the media and the mob.
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Unless you are using the term populace for what is now known as progressive I would say the populist would support the death penalty in this case. If you are referring to the progressive movement they are opposed to LWP as well as the death penalty.


Would I say that these kids have so crossed the line of morality that in 10, 20, or 40 years time there's absolutely no possibility that they could live law-abiding and useful lives as members of a community? No, I wouldn't say that at all. I'd say the opposite. I'd say that in a number of years time, properly assessed and with a regime aimed at rehabilitation as well as punishment and exclusion, there's every possibility (not necessarily likelihood, but it's possible) for someone to reform. Hence, a LWP tariff is counter-productive.
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I do not think that brainwashing will become advanced enough in the near or intermediate future to do this. And for them it would require neural engineering to do so. And I can think of the many uses such engineering would be put to; one would be as re-educating people who think Wrong Thoughts.:twisted:


With these boys, only one of whom thought it such a good idea to kill someone that he actually pulled the trigger, despite the fact that there was more than one weapon in the car, to say that there's zero possibility of any of them ever being able to live normal lives is a condemnation of the Oklahoma penal system as much as it is of their supposedly incorrigible nature.
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It sucks to do the time when you done the crime. And with the penal system in Oklahoma if I had my way there would be more guards and the prison population would be strictly monitored.
There does seem to be a train of thought running through many of these crime-related threads on DP that assumes that the only thing you can expect of the penal system is to prevent offenders and the general public from ever encountering one another again. That there are two types of people, crims and non-crims and that there's no redemption whereby the latter can return to being the former have once stepped across a line. I don't buy that.
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For crimes less than murder, rape and child molesters yes they might be able to rejoin society but in this particular case of Murder One. No they will have to be removed permanently.
 
Bodhisattva said:
In this case, yes. Based off of what I know. It may turn out that some evidence pops up that changes my mind, but I doubt that will happen. As an adult and facing the DP as well.
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And what do you know about the case besides what the prosecutors have said? Please share.


Isn't this thread about the Aussie guy and the teen that shot him? About the two others being tried as well? Maybe I am debating the wrong thing... :lol:
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That's what I've been discussing. :)
 
ChrisL said:
And what do you know about the case besides what the prosecutors have said? Please share.
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That the kid wanted to kill a person to see what it was like. They drove around, picked a target, drove up behind him and shot him in the back and then drove off in an attempt to get away.

"They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: 'There's our target,'" Ford said. "The boy who has talked to us said: 'We were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'

"They followed him in the car to that area, shot him in the back and drove off," Ford said.

What else is there to know?
 
Bodhisattva said:
That the kid wanted to kill a person to see what it was like. They drove around, picked a target, drove up behind him and shot him in the back and then drove off in an attempt to get away.

"They saw Christopher go by, and one of them said: 'There's our target,'" Ford said. "The boy who has talked to us said: 'We were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'

"They followed him in the car to that area, shot him in the back and drove off," Ford said.

What else is there to know?
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That's the claims from the prosecution. I don't think you know enough about these boys or this case to make any kind of determinations or judgments. If you respected our judicial system at all, you would realize how the position you're taking is so wrong. You have these kids tried and convicted. How sad. I'm hopeful that this is just a knee jerk emotional reaction and that cooler heads will prevail eventually.
 
Leo said:
There are good and justifiable reasons why there are juvenile courts and a juvenile justice system in every developed society on earth. We who are adults realise that while children can often be deliberately delinquent, they have not yet developed the capacity for fully understanding the effects of their actions - even murder. So we treat them as not fully developed beings and judge them by different standards, even when they commit the most horrible crimes. This is the way the civilised world operates, and it has taken us milennia to arrive at this stage of development.
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The reason for our "stage of development" is due to the longer life span that we now have and this allowed us to increase the age of majority.

A further peril of the simplistic (and ungrammatical) 'do the crime, do the time' ethos is where one draws the line. Is killing your father because he has incessantly bashed you all your life, as bad as killing your mother because she served you rhubarb pudding yet again, and she knew you hate the stuff? And what may be considered perfectly acceptable treatment of children in one subset of society, may be totally unacceptable in an other - so how do we decide when a crime merits the juvenile being judged as an adult?
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Let me see. I had a father bullied and belittled me and I did contemplate murder and if I had know the greater likely hood of a juvinal sentence instead of hard time I might have tried to do it. Killing my mother was unthinkable. I hope this answers your question.

So we opt for the safer course of an arbitrary age, whereafter one is legally an adult, and must be treated and judged as such. There should never, ever, be any question of a juvenile being judged by adult legal standards, whatever the circumstances.
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I think violent crimes should be treated differently than other crimes.
 
Andalublue said:
I'm claiming that committed terrorists blowing up 191 innocent civilians are probably less likely to be rehabilitated than three adolescents whose ennui and stupidity led to the death of a single innocent man. I'm guessing you disagree.
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They had a list of 4 people they wanted to kill. The one that they did kill was "just for fun." So in potential at least 5 could have been killed and they would have killed more people latter on if they were not stopped.
 
ChrisL said:
There definitely must be evidence to back a confession because there are a lot of nuts out there who have confessed to crimes they didn't actually commit, and it's important to get the "right" guy and not just another notch in a prosecutor's belt.
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One of the reasons I'm against the DA being an elective post and should be an appointed post.
 
ChrisL said:
This is some confusing territory we're crossing into now! ;)
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I am no expert but it seems to me that a mass murderer kills a lot of people in one place maybe at the same time.

A spree killer would kill people along the way as they move along.

Maybe there isn't much distinction between the two.
 
Mason66 said:
I am no expert but it seems to me that a mass murderer kills a lot of people in one place maybe at the same time.

A spree killer would kill people along the way as they move along.

Maybe there isn't much distinction between the two.
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I can see why they aren't classified as serial killers, but I can't really tell much difference between a spree killer and a mass murderer, so I have no idea. Perhaps you're right.
 
KevinKohler said:
What about life without parole for kids/teens?
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I think a study should be done on inmates that were 15 - 17 when they commited murders and have been inside for 25 years to see what kind of person they are after 25 years inside.

If there is a significant amount of them would still be a danger to society, then I would be more OK with giving a 15 - 17 year old life without parole.

What I think you will find is that the person has learned many life lessons and they are not a danger to society or are hardened to the point of being a danger.

The more hardened criminals are the ones that have been in and out and have learned to wrok the system from both sides.

It would be an interesting read.
 
AlabamaPaul said:
I understand these cases occur. I was expressing a personal opinion. IMV, the courts should expedite these cases not have them standing in line with Joe's beef with his neighbor appeal to higher courts. What is a reasonable appeal time frame?
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This goes to show that the Federal Government should have a separate Court for Criminal Appeals and not thru the only Court that we have now.
 
ChrisL said:
How do you think that would make a difference?
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DA's in Oklahoma are elected by their county and thus it is a political issue. If DA's were appointed instead then they would not have to worry about re-election and as long as the governor was of the same party that appointed him would probably do so again.
 
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