http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=int&vid=/video/us/2008/11/08/lemon.boy.murder.charge.cnn
For some strange reason, the original article has been altered. Rather than beginning with "A Town is Stunned" it now begins with "Slain father taught boy how to use guns, priest says". Most of the info is the same but it does now include a video of a defense lawyer from Chicago who represented a 12 year old that was charged with murder.
The problem that I have with charging the 8 year old is that 1) he is a baby, 2) he had no advocate present during questioning, 3) he is not old enough to know his rights or to know a lawyer even if these rights were read, 4) charging a child under the age of 16 as an adult is absolutely heinous and 5) there is not a 6-18 year old in the western world that has not at one time or more screamed loudly to a sibling, friend, cousin "I hate you! I wish you were dead!!!!!!".
This is all part of that "change" thing I wrote about...we have to change the way we look at things. We have to see how we - individually and as members of a society - have failed/are failing. If we judge our society by the way we treat our children and our elders...we are in serious trouble.
It is immoral to charge an 8 year old child with murder. To add "premeditated" to that charge says far more about the person doing the charging than it does the charged.
It is written that a child's personality is basically developed by the time she or he is 5 years old. That being said, who is the one that forms that personality? It is not formed in a vacuum.
Our minds are warped; our ethics convoluted. We are a jaded society.
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