How young is old enough?
Far too many young children are spending time in our correctional facilities. Most states have laws for dealing with juveniles, placing them in a separate category. Every single one of those statutes has an exception for serious crimes, I bet, where children are treated as adults.
But what is the age at which one says, no, no child of these many years can or should be prosecuted at all? Arizona, apparently, sets the bar at 8. Because police in AZ just arrested an 8 year old and charged him with the murder of his father and a friend of the father.
Eight. The boy is eight. He probably knows what has happened, but has no idea why or what the consequences are. Can children of eight form the necessary intent to commit a crime?
But that’s not all from this story. There doesn’t seem to be a requirement of having a parent present during an interrogation, because the cops got a confession. From an eight year old boy. Eight.
police got a confession, but the boy’s attorney, Benjamin Brewer, said police overreached in questioning the boy without representation from a parent or attorney and did not advise him of his rights.
“They became very accusing early on in the interview,” Brewer said. “Two officers with guns at their side, it’s very scary for anybody, for sure an 8-year-old kid.”
False confessions are sought and obtained with adults – I can only imagine how easy it must have been to get a confession from a highly suggestible eight year old child.
The last thing we need is to start putting eight year olds in prison. There has to be a resolution that does not involve prosecution.
The death of the father and father’s friend is certainly a sad event, but it does not need to compounded by prosecution an eight year old who likely has no clue why what he did was wrong, regardless of whether he meant it or not.
Do the right thing, Arizona. Don’t compound one tragedy with another.
On a side note, what’s the byline from this story? Guns don’t kill people, children kill people?
I agree with you about serious issues of capacity to form intent and about possible false statements, and I hope the Arizona trial attorney is alert to both. (I see far too many trial transcripts where false confession/witness statement does not seem to have been considered by trial counsel.) There’s no sign that the interrogation was recorded — sadly not required in most states, including CT. But mandated by the courts in MA and a few other places.
I know you don’t like guns, but the snide side note
was over the top.
There’s nothing wrong with a parent teaching a kid about guns and taking a kid hunting, so long as the kid is properly supervised. There are issues in general, and under Arizona law, about not storing firearms where a child can’t get to them when not in use. CT and MA, for example, require trigger locks or other security measures.
Oh come on. There’s no reason for an eight year old to be playing with guns. The kid is still in elementary school. Would you let an eight year old play with sharp knives? Or work on an electrical circuit? Then why are guns different?
I’m all for people teaching their kids about guns, but eight is far too young.
Depends a great deal on the kid and on supervision. The key here is supervision — which is different from playing around. Would I let an 8 year old build a bird house using sharp tools, while an adult watched and helped. Probably yes. Whittle? If they had the dexterity, probably yes, again with supervision.
I was just at the Boston Children’s Museum, which has an area for learning about tools — real drills, real saws, stuff you can hurt yourself with, aimed at around 5+ with parental supervision.
I was just looking at the Boy Scout website to see if there’s a minimum age for the rifle merit badge. When I was a youngster, scouts carried pocket knives, in school even, on days when there were meetings.
The Jr. Marksman program in Mass seems to start at 12, but implies that youths coming into it may already have some familiarity with firearms.
Kids can start horseback riding at age 7 or 8 — and there’s only so much any instructor can do if a two ton horse suddenly shies. One can easily get badly hurt or even killed, but it is rare.
Kids can start learning to ski around 6 or so, again, they’re not going to start on Black Diamond slopes, but one can get nasty fractures even on a bunny hill if one falls wrong. Again, rare, but possible.
The problem here may not have been exposing a kid to firearms and teaching the boy to shoot, but not storing the firearms and ammo securely when the kid wasn’t supervised, just like you store (or ought to store) your power tools, household chemicals, lawn mower, and other dangerous stuff safely when not in use.
Well, you shouldn’t let 8-year-old kids “play” with guns, but I don’t think there’s much harm in teaching them how to shoot a gun while supervised. Gun owners have a saying about this, something like “Don’t just child-proof your gun. Gun-proof your child.”
The idea is to teach your child how to be safe around guns. Even if you never screw up and leave a gun out at home, your child may find one at a friend’s house or discarded on the street.
The basic rules for children are simple: Don’t touch—leave the area—tell an adult. However, if your child takes an interest in your guns, a lot of people think you should satisfy that curiousity, so he doesn’t try to satisfy it by himself.
A lot of gun owners extend this practice to toy guns as well. We didn’t have guns when I was growing up, but my father insisted I handle my toy guns “safely.”
Not all guns owners are that thoughtful, of course, and something obviously went very badly wrong here. Nevertheless, letting a child handle a gun (supervised) isn’t as crazy as it sounds.
Prosecuting an eight year old is obscene and inhumane. That’s not to say there’s not a role for the courts in this, but it shouldn’t be presiding over a prosecution.
If the kid was being physically and/or sexually abused by both men, got fed up with it, killed them because if it, do you prosecute?
Dunno, but at 8 years old, if that hypothetical had happened to me, I would have been capable of forming the requisite intent to kill.
On a side note, what’s the byline from this story? Guns don’t kill people, children kill people?
I suspect the byline is, “People who can manipulate children kill people.”