We have certain standards for when children become adults in this country. We believe youngsters incapable of making the commitment to marry (or have consensual sex) without parental consent, in most states until sixteen, in others eighteen. We state that young people are too irresponsible to vote (or smoke) until they are eighteen. We hold that they are too reckless to drink (except for active duty military) or, in most cases, enter into contracts, until they are twenty-one. (And most rental car companies will not rent to people under 25.)
On the other hand, we hold them perfectly capable of being adults, of understanding the world around them, when it comes to violent crime. In that case, in some states, they become adults at the age of.... twelve.
In 2001, twelve-year old Christopher Pittman took a double-barreled shotgun and killed both his grandparents, set fire to the house, took the family dog and SUV, and fled. The facts are not in doubt: Pittman has admitted to them in court. Prosecutors tried him as an adult.
A jury took less than a day to convict him of the double-homicide. Because he was tried as an adult, not a juvenile, the judge had no ability to take his age into account when sentencing: he received thirty years with no possibility of parole.
This for a child -- and what other word is there for a twelve-year old ? -- with a troubled past, who had been on anti-depressants (including recently started Zoloft), and who had been twice abandoned by his mother, who claimed that his grandfather had beat him with a belt. Who had been on Paxil, an antidepressant no longer prescribed for people under the age of 18.
The state held him in juvenile detention for three years before trying him. It is noteworthy that the jury was faced not with a twelve year old, but a with a fifteen year-old. Someone who looked, in other words, much more like the adult he was accused of being.
The Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. That thirty-year sentence, with no possibility of parole, stood.
[Note: in the lengthy time I have spent thinking about this case -- I started writing this post in June -- Pittman received post-conviction relief from the circuit court on July 27. The circuit court did so based on the failure of his attorneys to seek a plea bargain. The state can appeal, however, and I would be very surprised if they did not do so.]
This summer, the Court, in what should be an obvious result (but with SCOTUS, that which should be obvious sometimes is ignored), held that life-imprisonment without possibility of parole for juveniles for non-homicide crimes is unconstitutional.
Interestingly, or perhaps maddeningly, the Court merely now states that juveniles must be offered a chance to show parole boards that they have matured enough to not be a danger to society.
And when will that be? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty? And what will this once child be like at that point? Arguably, a long prison term may make a once-child-now-adult more dangerous to society, not less.
Yes, there are children who will grow up to be serious menaces. Perhaps trying older juvenile repeat offenders as adults is not such a bad idea.* But children -- and I refuse to consider a twelve-year old, or thirteen year-old** anything other than a child -- deserve help, and a chance. To do otherwise is to throw them away.
Or we might as well declare them adults for all activities. Because if one is capable of landing in jail for such a possible length of years, what's a little drinking compared to that?
*While the Supreme Court dismissed another case involving a thirteen-year-old for procedural issues, the case it did decide involved a sixteen-year-old. Someone much closer to being an adult.
**The facts in the Sullivan case are atrocious: a thirteen-year old was convicted of rape on "voice identification" by a witness that had been blindfolded before the crime, and more importantly, the testimony of two older co-defendants who identified Joe Sullivan as the assailant, and who received juvenile sentences. (That brings up the issues of using co-defendant testimony, but that's a rant for another day.) DNA evidence, which was available, was not introduced at trial, and has since been destroyed. His attorney filed a brief on appeal stating that there were no issues. The attorney has since been disbarred.
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