Posted by Racer on March 1, 2006, at 17:04:15
Now to admit my guilty secret: I often "watch" CourtTV during the day. That is, I put it on, and sometimes pay some attention to the anchors. Nancy Grace, of course, raises my blood pressure, but the subject on which she really gets under my skin is juvenile justice. The other subject is mental illness, so you can imagine when the two coincide...
Anyway, her view seems to be that a juvenile who commits an "adult" crime should face the adult punishment. And I simply cannot agree. Seems to me that juveniles are fundamentally different from adults. Their brains have not yet finished developing, they don't have the perspective that adults do, they don't have the level of impulse control that adults are expected to have, and they don't have the psychological maturity to comprehend fully the consequences of their actions. In my view, their immaturity must be taken into consideration when it comes to their punishment. In fact, I would say that there is no justice involved when a juvenile is held to the same standards that would apply to an adult.
There have been two recent cases where these issues have come up. The case of the kid who killed his grandparents, the so called "Zoloft Defense" case; and the more recent case in New Mexico where the kid killed his family on Sam Donaldson's ranch. In both cases, the kids were under 15 when they committed the crimes, and in both cases mental illness was involved. The Zoloft kid was 12, and the defense was that a bad reaction to Zoloft may have been involved. The other boy was 14, and there were allegations of child abuse, as well as clear cut PTSD caused by his mother's death.
And then there are the cases that involve strictly mental illness, such as the Andrea Yates case. About which enough has been written on this board.
Anyone else have any opinions about this subject? It was on my mind, and I thought I'd find out how other people felt about it. So, weigh in, weigh in...
poster:Racer
thread:614721
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060204/msgs/614721.html