DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum 11 year old commits murder - try him as an adult?

Not sure if you all heard about this...this happened not too far from Pittsburgh. An 11 year old is accused of shooting his dad's girlfriend who was 8 months pregnant in the back of the head while she was sleeping. As it stands now, he going to be tried as an adult.

What do you all think? Should he be tried as an adult or as a juvenile? I'm a bit conflicted on the issue myself. Here is the full story...


11-Year-Old Murder Suspect Will Be Tried As Adult



A prosecutor said Monday that he had no choice but to file adult charges against an 11-year-old boy accused of killing his father's pregnant girlfriend, even though the child's age raises questions about where and how to jail him.

Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said Pennsylvania state law prohibits him from filing criminal homicide charges against Jordan Brown in juvenile court. As such, he had to charge the boy with homicide as an adult or with a lesser charge.

But he expects the boy's attorney to ask a judge to move the case to juvenile court.

Brown is charged with using his own 20-gauge shotgun -- a Christmas present he used to win a turkey shoot on Valentine's Day -- to kill 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk as she slept Friday morning. Houk was eight months pregnant with Brown's father's child, and had two daughters, aged 7 and 4, from a previous relationship.

To get the case moved to juvenile court, defense attorney Dennis Elisco must convince a judge the boy can be rehabilitated in that setting.

Bongivengo contends it was a "premeditated, cold killing."

"And because the juvenile system only has jurisdiction until he's 21, the last thing I want is a 21-year-old who's going to be out on the streets and willing to kill you."

Bongivengo said Houk's family has told police the boy had threatened her and her 7-year-old daughter in the weeks before the shooting. Houk's family has told The Associated Press the boy may have been jealous of Houk and her children.

"If this person were 18, we'd be looking at pursuing the death penalty," Bongivengo said.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate relatives of the boy and his father for comment Monday.

Elisco has said the boy hasn't confessed to the shooting and he doubts the physical evidence will support police's claim that the boy killed Houk execution-style, with one shot to the back of her head. Elisco didn't return phone calls Monday. He had planned to file motions asking a judge to move the case to juvenile court and to have the boy released on bail to his father.

Police have said after the shooting the boy then hopped onto a school bus with Houk's oldest daughter. State troopers picked him up at school after tree trimmers called 911 when Houk's youngest daughter told them she thought her mother was dead.

Brown and his father moved last year into a rural farmhouse Houk rented in Wampum, about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The couple were engaged in December.

A state police search warrant revealed Monday that police also found a blue blanket with a quarter-sized hole in it that appeared to be singed from a shotgun blast.

Bongivengo said authorities think the boy covered the gun with the blanket to hide it from Houk.

Because Brown is charged as an adult, he must remain in the county jail, and is separated from about 300 adult inmates. He's being kept out of a normal cellblock and in a 10-by-8-foot cell in the booking area and checked on every 15 minutes.

Lawrence County officials have checked to see if other counties have special jail facilities for underage offenders and, so far, haven't found any. Moving the boy to a juvenile detention center isn't possible because such facilities can't house anybody who is an "adult" in the eyes of the law, Bongivengo said.

Bongivengo said authorities will consider mitigating factors, like the boy's mental state and age, when Elisco files the motion to move the case to juvenile court. Bongivengo acknowledged concerns raised by experts interviewed by The Associated Press that the boy might have shot his stepmother-to-be be because he couldn't adjust to his new blended family, but said such conflicts don't normally result in murder.

"If it's such a huge problem you'd hear about it a heck of a lot more," Bongivengo said. "But to take this step, that's a huge step. This is something you don't see all the time. It's a rarity.


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Age be damned, he committed cold blooded, premeditated murder.

If the law requires him to be tried as an adult as a result of actually charging him with his crime, then so be it.

After he shot her, he actually hopped aboard his school bus to go to school...with one of the slain woman's daughters!

I'm just wondering that if you try him as an adult, how can he be put in an institution with adult males?

Wouldn't it be possible to put him in a juvenile detention center until he turns 18, then transfer him to a correctional facility?

I don't believe they put them in adult prison until they are actually considered an adult, even if convicted that way.

This kid obviously had severe issues. There is more to this story.....

They can worry about how to house him later. If he's old enough to pre-meditatively shoot someone in the back of the head, he's old enough to be tried as an adult, IMO. I agree with the prosecutor, I don't want this killer running around free at 21.

Oh, I guess I assumed that they would since he is being held in a jail right now with other adults...

He is being denied bail right now and his defense attorney is trying to reverse that.

I agree, something terrible must have happened to this kid in his short life to do something like this.

Try him as an adult

And I just assumed they wouldn't be kept with adults in prison. I don't know if they are or aren't. Seems like a really bad idea to put them with the adults.

J/C

I wonder why the police suspect he did it? Just because his gun was used doesn't prove anything. I'd have to hear more before i could decide.

He's the main suspect because of an interview they did with one of the womans kids, which they described as "credible". I have no idea what that involved, they didn't elaborate. And also, he has threatened to kill her and her kids a couple times in the past.

I'm quite sure they have a lot more to go on than just the gun.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on this....he is only 11! He only has the values and ethics he was raised with, right? Or are some kids just "bad seeds"? I would have to read more of what led up to the shooting...was he abused in any way? Did the father maybe set this up to get rid of the pregnant girlfriend?

I know I am asking more questions than anything, but I have a 12 year old daughter...and she soaks up everything I say and do like a sponge. I have taught her to be thoughtful and kind. You can probably teach a kid to be heartless and cold.

I agree with the prosecutor, I don't want this kid back out on the streets at 21, if he's found guilty of this murder. Ya have to try him as an adult.

So you don't think there's any possibility of rehabilitating him? This is what I'm wondering -- is there a higher success rate when it comes to rehabilitating children who are so young?

Just freakin sad man... a whole bunch of lives ruined.. the girl and her unborn baby, the two kids she already had, the father of the boy who was engaged to the woman...... not to mention the 11 year old shooter..

My heart goes out to the father and the two little girls..

As soon as that woman gets up and returns to her life, he should be rehabilitated and allowed to return to society. Since when did the rehabilitation of a murderer become society's responsibility? Are we going to miss him in the work force? Is his gene pool necessary to the survival of the species? Assuming he in fact shot this woman in cold blood, in the back of the head while she was sleeping, in what universe does it become our moral responsibility to expend the resources to try to reintegrate him back into society?

I'm not sure. I haven't seen or read much about rehabilitation and it's effectiveness, let alone on children. I'd have to read more about that to make that determination.

I just think that if he did kill her and planned to kill her for a while (premeditated) and it's proven in court that he did so, he should have to deal with the consequences of his actions as an adult. If he did do this, then he commited a very adult crime and if he's willing to do this at 11, is it too late for rehab? (no idea on the answer to that, by the way).

Frankly, I just hope against hope that the boy didn't actually do it and it was someone else instead. I hate to think of a boy just killing someone so coldly like that.

Here is an article that addresses it...

The intersection of childhood and criminality creates an uncomfortable tension. Crime is something we associate with adults. Childhood is generally a time of innocence.

But when a dreadful crime is committed by a young offender we don’t know what to do. In the face of this frustration and confusion — how could a child so young do something so terrible? — many propose rash and radically wrong solutions, like prosecuting and punishing all children as if they are adults.

But juvenile offenders are not magically transformed into adults by virtue of the seriousness of their crime. As hard as it is to do after tragedies like a shooting in an elementary school, we must remember that young offenders are children who have done something terrible, not criminals who just happen to be small. And because of this, our response to juvenile crime, no matter how serious the offense, must be different than our response to adult crime.

First is the issue of culpability. Determining criminal responsibility is more complicated than deciding whether an individual knows right from wrong. To be held accountable for a crime, the person not only needs to know right from wrong, but he also needs to be able to envision and understand the consequences of his behavior and have the cognitive and emotional abilities necessary to control his behavior. Because children younger than 13 can not do this consistently, we should not hold them as accountable as we hold adults for similar crimes.

Second, children lack the skills necessary to defend themselves in court. Like it or not, under our system of justice all defendants deserve a fair trial, no matter how heinous the alleged offense or how “sure” we are of the defendant’s guilt. People who do not understand what is happening to them when they are in court — whether because of mental illness, mental retardation, or sheer immaturity — are not competent to defend themselves in a trial.

Finally, young people are not yet fully formed. Many, but not all, can be rehabilitated through counseling, education, or a change in living circumstances. Punishment, however, does not have a rehabilitative effect (if anything, it makes juvenile offenders worse), nor has it been shown to deter other kids from crime. So when we decide to punish a juvenile offender by sentencing him as an adult, we are, in effect, giving up on that child. Maybe there are some on whom we should give up. The problem is that we are terrible at predicting which children are amenable to rehabilitation and which are not. And in the absence of our ability to forecast accurately, should we not err on the side of rehabilitation?

We must respond to juvenile crime in a way that recognizes the seriousness of the offense and the suffering of the victim. But our response must be developmentally appropriate, taking into account the normal intellectual and emotional immaturity of children. Yes, a bullet fired by a child has the same impact as one fired by an adult. But we can not let the nature of the offense, no matter how disturbing, overshadow what we know about the inherent differences between children and adults.

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I'm not a big believer in rehab of people who do things like this. There is something horribly wrong with someone who would commits this type of killing, I don't care how old they are. I'm sure there are cases where it has happened, but my guess is the vast majority of the time it can't be done.

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So you don't think there's any possibility of rehabilitating him? This is what I'm wondering -- is there a higher success rate when it comes to rehabilitating children who are so young?

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That's a tough call... one side of me says "you gotta be able to rehab an 11 year old" but the other side of me says "let him rot in jail"!

Fact is, if you look, there may be examples that Rehabing has worked.. and I'm sure there are examples of it not working.

So my stance is, review it, case by case, make the best determination you can and live with the results.....

There isn't a good choice in the bunch.

Being tried as an adult does not mean you go to an adult prison...you end up in juvenile facilities until the age of 18, and then are moved elsewhere.

The reasoning behind charging a juvenile as an adult is that someone charged as a juvenile cannot be punished for their crime beyond the age of 18.

If I'm wrong, someone correct me, but I believe that's how it goes.

Phil I'm no lawyer, but that sounds right. By charging them as an adult, they are not automatically released at 18 or some age around that. The State can control thier lives for a longer period of time.

THe thing I wonder about is if at the age of 18, they move the kid to an adult prison for a few years, then decide to review the case.

Can they then decide that this kids actions were that of an 11 year old and that he is unlikely to commit any other crimes?

Again, assuming he did it, at that moment when he put that barrel to her head and made the decision to pull the trigger, he gave up his right to a normal life. All the philosophical reasoning in the world doesn't change that. Society owes nothing to this person for that act of brutality. What society is owed, is the reasonable expectation that it not be allowed to happen again. He is not owed even the potential possibility to be reintegrated into society in the off chance he may be redeemable. He is not. Because that point is moot. Redeemable or not, he has no right to return to society. Regardless of whether he is 11, 18, or 111. I feel the same way about paroled murders. It may appear important to say and do the seemingly humane thing to feel better about ourselves and to pat ourselves on the backs for being caring, thoughtful and ponderous, but the greater good, the safety of society as a whole takes precedence over that of the contrived, (not inherent,) rights of a single individual. He no longer has the inherent right to live freely among society. He gave that up by pulling that trigger, it is no more complicated than that. JMHO

That's what my assumption too, but looking around a little, I'm not sure that is, or is always, the case.


http://cfcamerica.org/index.php?option=c...n&Itemid=88



IF I GET OUT ALIVE is a one-hour radio documentary, which exposes the systematic abuse and brutality faced by juveniles in the adult prison system. It is narrated by Academy Award-winning actress and child advocate Diane Keaton. The program addresses first-hand accounts from adolescents currently behind bars, rehabilitated youths who survived the system, parents of children who died in adult prisons, legal experts, policy makers and correction officers. The program also addresses the abysmal mental health conditions in prison and jails faced by young people (fifty percent of whom, according to new research, are affected by a serious mental illness) as well as examining alternative sentencing programs that are successful in diverting young offenders from prison.

Across the United States, tens of thousands of children are locked up in with adults in prisons and jails every year. This is not only immoral and unwise; it is a violation of the U.S. Constitution and of United Nations standards. And the threat is growing. Currently, laws are pending in Congress and in several states that would double or even triple the number of young people in adult prisons.

j/c

Maybe I am too harsh but if the little sob did this then to hell with putting him with adults , juvies or anyone else . Take him out back and put a bullet in his brain basket . Who cares why he did what he did , who cares why anyone kills someone other than in self defense . You break it you buy it and this kid broke rule number one so the penalty must be paid .

Just to add to your post...How does an 11yr. old even think of this? more to the whole storry then we know?

Everybody raise your hand who would want this kid to have his juvi record sealed, and be let out at 18 to date your daughter

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we don't do that with adults

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An oversite that should be corrected . In cases where guilt is not in doubt ie DNA and the like then the sentence should be carried out instantly . This kid ended the life of another person and for that , if proven guilty, he should forfeit his own . Seems pretty simple to me.

Where did he get the gun . Was it a legal weapon ? Thats why we need tougher gun restrictions because guns kill people . ( Hey, I figured if we started down the excuses road why not trot out all of the supposed reasons why we should not hold this animal accountable .)

Ooops! Just got ahead of myself.