The Lynch Mob

On a web forum I used to frequent, we debated the question of a 13-year-old boy with 18 convictions on his record, including the rape of a 72-year-old woman.  It was reported that the Supreme Court will be considering whether his life sentence without the possibility of parole, after being tried as an adult, constitutes “cruel and unusual” punishment under the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

I can tell you there were plenty of impassioned and firmly expressed opinions on this subject!

While the case is more than 20 years old, the questions still remain.

There were a few folks that believe the boy had the right to a “chance” at redemption.  In their opinion locking a boy up at 13, regardless of his record with no chance ever to get out of prison was indeed cruel and unusual.  Some lamented the lack of a focus on “rehabilitation” in the prison systems.

There was another louder and more numerous group holding strongly that after all those convictions and especially the extremely violent and demented nature of the most recent one, there’s no question that the boy should never see the light of day again.  Some even advocated executing the boy offering one or more of several reasons such as, “It costs too much to incarcerate him that long.” or “He’ll just repeat the offense again.”

Frankly, I fall pretty squarely into the camp that says don’t take any chances with public safety and extremely troubled individuals like this kid.  Given the boy’s history, I would agree that the likelihood of a rehabilitation is pretty small.  I am not at all against keeping the boy locked up.

What troubles me is how we go about it.

This boy is 13 years old and under Law, not responsible for his own actions.  Nevertheless, under most state laws there are certain situations under which an accused child may be tried, “as an adult” and if convicted, face the same penalties an adult would face if convicted of the same crime.  After I thought about this practice a while, it began to bother me.

Here we have a kid whom the law recognizes is not competent to make decisions for himself because he is what the law would call, “a minor.”  What this practice says is that this child can commit an act, a crime, which has the legal effect of him waiving his “minority” and thrusts him immediately into his “majority” (adulthood).  By saying this kid is “competent to be tried as an adult” are we not saying that the kid is an adult?  It was his own act, and no one else’, which propelled him into adulthood five years before the law would otherwise consider him an adult.I remain puzzled as to how a minor, who is accused of a crime, can have the power to become an adult five years before those who do not commit crimes.  Isn’t the state saying the boy doesn’t have the power to decide for himself but then insists that he does have the power to decide for himself?  How can we say that “good boys” have no power to decide for themselves but “bad boys” can decide for themselves but only in the narrow circumstances where the state wants to vengeance for a crime he is accused of committing?

Cliches make for poor writing, I agree, but please forgive me this one. I am not a lawyer, and I don’t even play one on TV, but from my limited understanding of legal principles, it’s pretty important that a word or a term mean precisely the same thing in every case.  Imagine the consequences if the word “rape” was understood to mean what we all understand it to mean in one case but was allowed to mean, “grab by the hair and forcibly kiss” in another.  Under a system like that, a 17-year-old soldier could be hanged, as rape is punishable by death under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), for grabbing another man at a party by the hair and kissing him as a joke.

And I admit, I’m a bit rigid in my thinking on these kinds of things but I still think it’s important that the word, “adult” mean the same thing in every court every single time it’s used.  Consider this.  Say your 13-old-son is accused of murder, having been wrongfully accused by another kid.  Before you can stop it, the district attorney files a motion to try him as an adult and the judge grants it.  The state has declared him to be an adult and if convicted, will punish him accordingly.  If you live in a state with capital punishment, you will be laying awake every night worried your (innocent) son will be executed for a crime he didn’t commit.

In the course of the trial, the truth comes out and your boy is acquitted and he is set free.  What is his status now?  You’d probably be so relieved he’s been acquitted and the nightmare is over, it wouldn’t even come to mind but really, hasn’t your boy already been declared an adult by the state?  How can the state say out of one side of its mouth that the boy is mature enough to understand his actions and be held responsible for them while out of the other side of its mouth say, “Johnny, you’re still a child.”

In my mind if the court system is just and honest, your little Johnny is now an adult in the eyes of the law and entitled to “all the rights and benefits thereunto pertaining.”

So let’s think about that.Is he eligible to apply for a drivers license?Join the military?Travel overseas without parental permission?

How about have a beer with his (older!) friends?

What if he kisses his 13-year-old girlfriend?  Is he then guilty of some form of paedophilia?

Remember, the STATE has already declared him competent as an ADULT.

This is beginning to sound ridiculous, I know, but if you’ve been paying attention to some of the ridiculous things governments at all levels have been doing lately, you can understand to what sort of slippery slope this kind of thinking can lead us.

Am I saying that we should pander to 13-year-old criminals and coddle them until they turn 18?  Not at all.

I am suggesting that we get rid of this “Alice in Wonderland” juvenile legal system, that basically tells kids they can get away with virtually anything until they turn 18 (except in cases where the state waves its magic wand and “makes” them an adult), and replace it with a system which allows for responsibility for most crimes at a younger age and then draw the line.  No more of this, “sometimes an adult, sometimes not.”

“Don’t tell kids, “In this situation, you’re a kid but in this one, you’re an adult.”  That’s asinine and is just asking for a lot of the trouble we’ve had with crime.

Those who know me know that I lament sadly our utter failure as Americans to demand that our government obey our Constitution and in most cases, we don’t even bother to demand they follow lesser laws either.  I think this is part of the problem.  Most people seem to think they have the protections of the Bill of Rights and other laws and argue bitterly if they are violated.  On the other hand, if some guy they have been led to believe is a bad man, a criminal has HIS rights violated, that’s OK.

Most of us seem to be OK with this kind of practice.

I think this lynch mob mentality is a very slippery slope.

And steep.

If everyone’s rights are not protected, then nobody’s rights are safe.

Here’s an article on the case we were discussing:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/us/03bar.html

Please share your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks for reading!

cma