FJBlack8 wrote:
Nas wrote:
I completely understand the point you and SD are making. In just about every other case I would be in agreement with you all. I admittedly have a soft spot for the young and elderly. I just can't wrap my head around a kid being punished for decades for a mistake they made at 14. Their life is essentially over. They'll struggle to reassimilate themselves into our society. Our system is allegedly supposed to rehabilitate a prisoner. We should be able to find a way to do that for a child. That doesn't mean zero punishment. It just means that you aren't treating a kid like they're mentally developed like you or I.
These kids took something that MANY kids have done (throw rocks at cars) to an extreme. I seriously doubt that they were trying to kill anyone. That doesn't change the fact that a toddler won't have a father. I completely understand that. Locking young children up for decades doesn't fix it either.
BS - This shows the bias that is our US Justice system and you are part of the problem. Should an African American teen only get treatment for 8 months and released after shooting a gun into a crowd of people? Should a Neo Nazi teenager who goes to school with an AR-15 and kills his fellow students only get 8 months of treatment and released? What these kids did is far worse than either of the former scenarios. Their upbringing affords them the opportunity to make sound decisions and none of them stopped this from happening. A lack of respect for human life isn't cured by 8 months of treatment. They should be locked up and their parents should have civil suits filed against them. My punishment for hitting a kid in the eye with a rubber band in junior high school was more severe than what these kids got. Throwing these kids in jail won't fix them, but it sure as hell will prevent their peers from doing dumb shit. What kind of message does 8 months of treatment for murdering someone send to their peers?
No surprise being represented by a paid attorney is better than being represented by a court appointed one. I don't think any kid's life should be thrown away for a decision they made at 14 but your examples are worse.
How much time should they get? Do you make an example out of them because they aren't poor? Money doesn't prevent kids from doing dumb shit. Throwing kids in jail for a long time won't stop other kids from doing dumb shit.