Murder is always an ugly crime. Murder inside a family has an added dimension of ugliness to it, because the grieving loved ones of the victim are also the heavily conflicted loved ones of the guilty party or parties.
The most recent case is a couple of boys aged 15 and 12 in Indiana who, with a little help from the neighbor kids, killed their stepfather. Now, the kids are in a whole heap of trouble, and justifiably so, and the argument is on as to whether or not they should be tried in adult court, which I’ll comment on in a minute but first, I would just like to say that I really feel bad for the mother in this case. One the one hand, she has known her children, probably, longer than her husband, and almost certainly has a stronger bond with them.
She may remain angry with them forever and write them out of her life, but it would be as hard on her as it is on them.
Now, let’s go back to the whole juvenile v. adult court issue. Of course they should be tried as juveniles. They are juveniles. What is the point of having two separate court systems if you are not going to use them?
The reason given in the article for trying them as adults is that the juvenile court system is not set up to deal with such horrible crimes. What, do they need a bigger, more horrible judge? A courtroom with higher benches for more leg room?
If they are not set up for it, they need to get set up for it. A trial like this would be no picnic in adult court, either. There will be all sorts of procedural motions and delays and considerations of the sentiments of the family and psychiatric evidence and a dissection of the family’s life and massive press coverage, but there’s no reason all that shouldn’t happen in juvenile court.
There’s one more thing I’d like to say. I could be wrong, but whenever I hear about a child killing their parent, I tend to think it was the fault of the parent. I’m no child psychologist, and my kids are a bit out of control at times, but I’m not concerned that they are going to up and kill me some day. That’s just not the way they are being raised.
I saw “The Bad Seed” but I think it was fiction.
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I agree. Like it or not, parents are responsible for a childs DNA, environment, and in their formative years…their thinking patterns. Children can grow to make poor choices, but where did they learn how to do that ? Baby Boomers rebelled against everything their parents taught them, to some extent, and in most cases for just reasons. The point is, we rebelled, we taught our kids to rebel and express themselves. What can we expect ? Don’t blame the children. They are the product of their parents lives.