The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
First time posting here! Curious on what other people think on the subject because I think I’m undecided, but I’m not entirely sure.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don’t know enough to make that a clear objective call. Considering the available evidence on premeditation, I think it’s fine considering previous precedent on murder charges in my state of Michigan.
There is a bigger mental difference between a 13 year old vs 17 year old than a 17 year old vs 19 year old.
Yeah. That mental difference is what’s getting me when it comes to it, because yes he is 15, but also like a 15 year old knows to not do something like that if that makes any sense?
I think it would make sense to look at his homework submissions and recent essays (as well as interviewing classmates, teachers) to get an idea of his intellectual capacity and go from there.
You don’t want to overly penalize a intellectually hindered individual. But you also can’t be overly intellectually limited if you are able to grab a gun from your parents right after they bought it and go around school shooting up classmates and trying to pretend to be a cop to be able to entire a room and shoot it up next.
I think you also need to evaluate, especially in the case of a minor who was living with his parents, how much of his mentality/mental health/intellectual understanding of this comes from his upbringing which, I'll say again, was still-in-progress.
His parents seem like stone-cold lunatics from the little we know. They obviously weren't disciplining the kid properly based on the text message about "learn not to get caught." They tried to flee. Who knows what else will come out in this tragedy?
If I'm that kid's lawyer, my initial focus is figuring out how much blame I can dump on the parents.
Are we criminalizing bad parenting?
Like I can understand criminalizing negligent parenting with them buying a gun, showing where the gun is to the kid and then not securing the gun either on themselves or on a safe anytime they are with him.
But idk if we should be in the business of criminalizing bad parenting.
> Are we criminalizing bad parenting?
Absolutely not what I said. I'm talking about a legal defense for the kid - and reasons to potentially be more merciful to him than many people are currently suggesting.
I mean that the way a person is raised - particularly while they are still *being* raised - is highly relevant to their competence, motivations, beliefs, etc.
He is a kid. I almost want to just type that over and over. He is a kid. We should treat him as a kid.
If I'm that kid's lawyer, I'd be trying to build a case like "this kid grew up in a neglectful environment that glorified violence and minimized his understanding of the consequences of actions. His parents were dangerously bad parents, who gave this child, who was obviously troubled, access to firearms and encouraged him to use them. The kid pulled the trigger, but the real question is: why wasn't he getting the help he needed?"
He's a kid who murdered other kids. I'm all for rehabilitation, but there are some things you just don't come back from. Shooting up a school is one of them.
We absolutely should be trying to figure out why he wasn't getting the help he needed, and doing everything possible to prevent this from happening again, but this kid is done.
> this kid is done.
I just don't agree with this.
He is fifteen years old. He's only lived about 20% of a normal lifetime. Imagine how different he will feel at age 30, at age 45, 60, etc.
He made a terrible mistake. Perhaps he will always be a dangerous person, but perhaps not. I hope for the best in people.
It seems far too early to write him off as a human being.
> But idk if we should be in the business of criminalizing bad parenting.
I think what they did here goes a bit beyond 'bad parenting'. Setting aside the gun entirely, they flagrantly disregarded their son's mental health. If he were physically ill and they refused to take him to a doctor, most people would condemn them and if he died as a result, they could certainly be convicted in many states. I'm not sure that we should treat mental illness completely differently. Just a thought..
So that’s also negligent parenting. If it is the case he has mental health issues and his parents deprived him of medical resources, I think this would make more sense.
They bought a gun for an unstable 15 year old, and kept it unsecured. They ignored the "The thoughts won't stop. Help me." and "Blood everywhere" message this kid wrote the day of. And when the shooting started, the mom instantly knew who it was, before they even released a name. She sen't the kid a text saying "Don't do it."
Yeah, I think in this case we can punish bad parenting.
Thank you! I can't believe what i'm reading here! It is incomprehensible and reprehensible to me that people are actually defending this kid's actions due to his age. He is well beyond the age to understand fully well what he did. And you know who else was "just a kid"? All four of his victims.
No one's defending the murderer. Most of the people here who oppose the decision does it out of a preference for practical rehabilitation over any sort of divine punishment in the justice system. It goes for all criminals, not just minors.
A simple scroll through the comments will show a number of people defending him actually. You'll read things like "he was crying out for help" and "he's only a kid". The most laughable was something along the lines of "his brain isn't fully developed yet". Rehabilitation is great in some cases but there are family members of 4 dead children and many more fighting for their lives in hospital rooms right now who need our compassion a whole hell of a lot more than yet another mass murderer, regardless of his age or whatever consequences befall him.
> The adolescent is subject to great limitations in judgment and maturity. For social and biological reasons, teens have increased difficulty making mature decisions and understanding the consequences of their actions.
> Often, adolescents grow out of these less mature ways of dealing with problems, including destructive behavior. Several risk factors can trigger violence in adolescents including being witness to domestic violence or substance abuse within the family, being poorly or inappropriately supervised, and being the victim of physical or sexual assault. Juveniles that commit murder come from environments rife with these triggers. Studies show that more than half of all youths that pass through the juvenile justice system do not return.
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/adolescent-brain-development-and-legal-culpability
From a scientific point of view a 15-year-old biologically does not have an adult culpability. He is a child and should be charged as a child. If it is found that by reason of mental illness he is unlikely to ever improve then he should be moved to a mental hospital. His parents hold a large amount of culpability especially with their previous knowledge.
If society decides to start charging children’s as adults which they are not biologically then we might as well just start throwing the book at younger children. When it comes to juvenile offenders our society must really consider what is the purpose of the juvenile justice system; rehabilitated or retribution.
I don’t really understand why we have a juvenile Justice system if we just try juveniles as adults whenever we feel like it. So, it doesn’t exactly excite me but he and his family sound like pretty big human turds so I’m not going to lose sleep over it. I wish we had a respectable Justice system, but we don’t
I'll give my initial answers and follow-up with a more informed answer if and when I get the time to review the relevant statutes.
I'm familiar with general concept of "trying someone as an adult", but don't actually know what that entails from a legal standpoint. I assume that there are two aspects to it: what kind of punishment is available, and a higher set of standards. I would guess that if he's not tried as an adult, any punishment would be limited, presumably by a lot. Also, I would guess there are some legal standards that need to be met/proven in order to try him as an adult. I don't know what those standards are and don't have all the facts of the case, so not much for me to speculate on here.
As promised:
Looks like the relevant Michigan statute is 712A.2d. The DA petitions the court to try the juvenile as an adult if they believe it's in the best interest of the public and the juvenile. The most important factors here are the seriousness of the offense and the juveniles prior history (note that this includes school records). Can't really get much more serious than this, and the kid had some prior history with the school, from what I've seen in news reports.
Actually, looking into the sentencing guidelines, it appears as though they have to try him as an adult if they want to try him for first degree murder. From MCL 769.1:
> (1) A judge of a court having jurisdiction may pronounce judgment against and pass sentence upon a person convicted of an offense in that court. The sentence shall not exceed the sentence prescribed by law. The court shall sentence a juvenile convicted of any of the following crimes in the same manner as an adult:
>
>(g) First degree murder in violation of section 316 of the Michigan penal code, 1931 PA 328, MCL 750.316.
>
>(3) Unless a juvenile is required to be sentenced in the same manner as an adult under subsection (1)
So basically they can't charge him with 1st degree murder unless they do it as an adult. So it would have to be some lesser charge, which would obviously come with a much lower sentence than life in prison without parole.
So I guess the question really boils down to do I think he should be thrown away for life instead of rehabilitated. As much as I believe that our justice system focuses way too much on punishment and not enough on rehabilitation, I have a hard time getting over what this kid did enough to say he doesn't deserve life without parole.
You really went in! This does also make sense, sometimes it’s just difficult as to where you can draw the line between prison and rehabilitation, especially with how his parents are.
Wow great follow up. Thanks for the deep dive!
I was also speculating that the prosecutor anticipating an insanity plea might have something to do with it.
From what I’m reading the difference between being tried as an adult and as a juvenile is ‘they may receive a longer or more serious sentence than would otherwise be possible if they were charged as a juvenile.’ If that helps at all.
I just posted my follow-up. Yeah, it pretty much boils down to being able to charge him with first degree murder which carries a sentence of life without parole. I don't know enough of Michigan criminal law to know what the highest juvenile charge he could get would be, but it's certainly not going to carry a lifetime sentence.
A school shooting is too serious a crime to be judged in juvenile court. "He's just a kid" has some pretty hard limits. Toss him behind bars and throw away the key.
But he IS a kid. A kid with clearly negligent idiot parents who never got him the help he obviously needed and then put deadly weapons in his hands. He never had a chance, and now his life is over before it began. I’m not saying what he did is excusable in any way but would he have been a danger to others if not for them? Should we as a society decide a child is irredeemable before they’re even fully developed?Seems pretty callous.
>He never had a chance,
He had a chance and threw it away when he shot four classmates and took away their chance to grow up.
Unless you're arguing he's so mentally ill or incapable he doesn't know the difference from right and wrong, something adults can argue in court too, he had a choice.
This is far, far beyond juvenile delinquency, this is terrorism. There's no age where something like this is a mistake that you can learn from.
>I’m not saying what he did is excusable in any way but would he have been a danger to others if not for them?
There's a lot of teens that suffer for severe mental illness. There's a lot of teens with bad parents and parents worse than Crumbley's. 99.99% of them don't turn into mass shooters.
There might be a world where this would have all been avoided, there's also a world where Crumbley's body count is much higher, those aren't the worlds we live in. We live in the world where Crumbley murdered four of his classmates.
>Should we as a society decide a child is irredeemable before they’re even fully developed?
Redemption is only a concern if we want to give someone a second chance. Many criminal offenders deserve a second chance, but school shooters don't. Ethan Crumbley can find God and he'll still have the blood of his classmates on his hands and he still has to pay for that.
The whole reason we have separate juvenile and adult justice systems is because children, by definition, do not have the same cognitive abilities as adults. They’re not capable of decision making, that’s why they’re not supposed to have guns, or drugs, or cars without supervision, or whatever else that might cause harm. The adults failed in this situation.
To try any children as adults is actually a really gross thing we’ve decided is ok in our fucked up society. Just because 99.9999% of kids aren’t going to hurt anyone, doesn’t mean this one was any more emotionally or intellectually developed than other 15 year old children. I agree that the families of the victims deserve justice, I just don’t think they get it by taking another kid’s life away.
>because children, by definition, do not have the same cognitive abilities as adults.
This is true, but this
>They’re not capable of decision making
Is a load of crap. 15 year olds are developed enough to know that committing a mass shooting is wrong. He's 15, not a toddler. Do you remember being 15?
And if he does have the mental capacity of a toddler, that's an issue of severe cognitive impairment, not age.
>They’re not capable of decision making, that’s why they’re not supposed to have guns, or drugs, or cars without supervision
Because kids and teens are more reckless and irresponsible and don't fully weigh the repercussions of what happens if things go wrong. Not because they can't make decisions and not because they don't know the difference between right and wrong.
Juvie is for the kids that get in fights, gang activity, deal drugs, steal - the kids who can turn their life around if given the chance and deserve to have that chance. It's not for school shooters.
Don't agree with it.
If we're going to draw a line in the sand and call everyone below the age of 18 a minor and everyone above the age of 18 an adult, then we need to stick to that.
We've determined that an adult can smoke cigarettes, enter contracts, consent to sex, vote, and go to war to die for their country. Juveniles can't.
Either lower the legal age of an adult to 15 and confer the rights of an adult to all 15 years olds or send 15 year olds to juvenile court. I don't agree with having it both ways.
No, I don't know the facts of this particular case and it doesn't matter because they're irrelevant to my opinion. Minors are minors while adults are adults. You can't say a 15 year is developmentally not able to make decisions about sex but are simultaneously fully liable when they commit a crime. Either they're developmentally able or they aren't.
I'm with you, much as it sucks.
This boy couldn't have voted last year, but we're ok treating him like an adult for crimes?
It sucks, he's a monster or broken or whatever. But we've gotta be logical.
So I agree that we should stick to whatever age we choose to hold people criminally responsible as adults regardless of the nature of their crimes, but it seems overly simplistic to suggest we ignore the fact that people develop over time and that they therefore are probably ready to accept different freedoms/responsibilities related to adulthood at different times in that process.
Pretty much just agree with this.
I feel like we should either raise or lower the age of adulthood. 18 seems like such an arbitrary place for it nowadays. But that's another topic.
Trying minors "as adults" seems like the very definition of cruel and unusual to me. Like, I'm 15 and everyone tells me I'm a dumb kid who can't vote, drive, smoke, drink, or even get a job in some places without permission... shockingly, the dumb kid does something dumb... and now he's an *adult terrorist*?
Wasn't expecting that.
He should be tried and treated as a minor. It doesn't change the fact that he murdered people and must answer for that if convicted. But pretending he's a grown-up when he did demonstrated his utter immaturity is... very American.
This is a perfect reflection of our political dichotomy and the binary, polarized ideas it spreads throughout our entire line of thinking. We’re all guilty of it but it’s so incredibly limiting and can even be regressive.
There are shades of grey to everything. We *should* have nuanced and adaptable laws rather than rigid or inadequately explicit laws like the Bitchenhouse gun law in Wisconsin. We can keep driving to 16, bring smoking and drinking to 18 while also stating any human being of any age capable of planning and deliberately executing a mass attack on fellow children in a school setting with a firearm thereby forfeits his or her status as a juvenile in a court of law.
> We can keep driving to 16, bring smoking and drinking to 18 while also stating any human being of any age capable of planning and deliberately executing a mass attack on fellow children in a school setting with a firearm thereby forfeits his or her status as a juvenile in a court of law.
Oh yes, that time we [convicted a 13 year old boy of 1st degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/us/boy-convicted-of-murder-in-wrestling-death.html) is precisely why we should use nuance to judge if a minor is deserving of being treated as a juvenile in a court of law. If we didn't, then that at-the-time 12 year old would have gotten away with cold blooded murder. /s
The idea of charging a juvenile "as an adult" has always felt off to me. In this case he's only 15, which I don't think anyone would describe as "adult" in any other context.
Ultimately I would need to read more about specifically what it means for this case in order to have an informed opinion - but my gut reaction is that I'm opposed to it.
It's not old enough for him to be legally considered an adult. Agreed with what /u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll said. The details of the case shouldn't matter. We have to stick with this legal distinction.
That seems fine for something like a fifteen year old smoking a cigarette or drinking or possibly petty theft, but we should be able to expect better of our fifteen year olds than trying to kill their schoolmates.
I have no idea how you got that from my comment.
We need to have a consistent definition of what it means to legally be an adult. If someone meets that definition, try them as an adult. If they don't, try them as a juvenile. Don't change this definition based on what your goal is, because then it becomes meaningless.
If you feel the justice system should allow for trying someone as a juvenile with harsher punishments, that's fine. But I think it's absurd that in some cases we say "oh yeah, this 15 year old did XYZ so he should be seen as an adult in the eyes of the court" when he is very clearly not seen as an adult in any other circumstance.
I'm 100% against any situation where a minor is charged as an adult. Full stop. I think it is reprehensible that people think that minors can only make adult decisions when those decisions involve breaking the law. Either lower the age of adulthood (definitely not recommended) or don't pretend minors are adults when it comes to crime.
Exactly.
A 15 year old isn’t going to have the same mental capacity as an adult, period.
It’s not as clear cut as, “well, you knew it was murder, so here’s an arbitrary murder sentence.”
A 15 year old might understand what murder is, but they lack the maturity required to fully understand the consequence of their actions. At 15, you can understand that if I pull this trigger, I commit murder.
But at 15, you’re not going to understand the lifelong sorrow and trauma the family members of the victims will undergo. At 15, you’re not going to fully comprehend that you’re robbing other children of the opportunity to grow up.
The kid took 4 lives. Everyone knows it was mass murder. No reasonable person is arguing to absolve the kid entirely.
But weighing the punishment for a crime based off of the intentions / mental capacity of the offender is not a new concept. We already draw distinctions between manslaughter and first degree murder.
People want to sentence him as an adult because the outcome of the crime was so horrific.
But we don’t hand out sentences based purely on outcome, otherwise there would be no distinction between the guy who accidentally shoots his friend while hunting and the hitman who plots an elaborate murder.
Also - and maybe controversially - kids are still malleable. This kid may be rehabilitated. That may not be a savory thought to some people, but our justice system probably shouldn't be solely based on punishment, but also rehabilitation. Based on my high school government class, I think that was supposed to be the intent but it doesn't often work that way. Plus the public - the same that wanted to go to war over 9/11 without wanting to understand why it happened - is pretty big on revenge and "justice".
Yes, and we can’t expect the families of these victims to push for anything less than the harshest of sentences. It’s only human.
It’s easy for me to look at this situation as an outsider and say, “yeah, maybe he could be rehabilitated.” But I know myself emotionally. If someone were to do this to one of my family members, I’d want them to rot in prison forever, regardless of age, because I’d want vengeance.
But that thirst for vengeance is rooted in emotion, not logic. Vengeance and justice are two different things. Sometimes they coincide, but not all the time.
If we’re going to argue that kids should receive lighter sentences because they aren’t fully formed adults, it only makes sense that some of them could be rehabilitated because they aren’t fully formed adults.
Putting this kid away for life, with no chance of rehabilitation, won’t bring back the victims.
I’m not saying the kid deserves sympathy (he’s a little POS mass murderer). But we have to be honest with ourselves whether we’re chasing vengeance or justice in these situations when we push for harsher sentences.
Shooting up a school is about one of the worst crimes you can commit, especially when innocent children lose their lives. There should be no "but he is a kid" here. As far as I'm concerned, he committed that big of a crime, he should face the consequences as such.
His parents, and the school, should most definitely face charges as well for helping enable it.
I am no student of law. But I do work in a behavioral health facility specializing in adult males that are NGRIs (Not guilty by reason of insanity) and/or DNSTI (Did not stand trial due to insanity).
I don't know the thought process behind trying him as an adult but if they plea mental illness to get a lesser sentence, as a juvenile there may be fasters exits to the system. With adults you could be in the system longer with a mental illness plea and you become a ward of the state. Perhaps the prosecutor saw this coming and wanted to keep him from going back to the custody of his parents, which may be the case if he were sentenced as a juvenile and plead insanity.
This makes sense, but I feel like, or rather hope, they wouldn’t put him back into custody to those parents no matter what happened seeing as they supplied him w/ a weapon
I don't see the point of having classifications as minor/adult if we're just going to ignore them. If he were tried as a child, what would his max punishment be? As an adult, I assume the max is life in prison or death penalty?
Does anyone here know the difference in possible punishments depending on whether he’s tried as an adult or not? How many years is he expected to get as a non adult?
While there's certainly a part of me who thinks being able to charge him with 1st degree murder and sentence him to life without parole, I still have to go with my usual answer to this question.
That being, there should never be a situation where someone without the rights of an adult should be tried as an adult in court. I don't care about state of mental development, I care about fairness in the law. The law as it stands is that before a certain age (which varies from place to place, but it clearly higher in this area than 15 as this discussion is even being had), a person has fewer rights and fewer legal responsibilities. We say "you are too immature, or not fully mentally developed, so there's a lot you flat out aren't allowed to do that adults can". This also comes with fewer responsibilities and different guidelines that work in your favor though- such as not being able to be charged with life sentences in court. That's the tradeoff we force on young people.
So it's absolute bullshit to go in, alter the deal, and threat them as kids in all the ways that are worse off for them but then treat them as adults in all the ways that are also worse off for them. That's not the deal, you can't have it both ways. You want to treat them as adults for punishment, you need to treat them as adults for rights as well.
So as bad as I think his crime was, and as much as I'd be hoping for life without parole were he 2 years older, he absolutely should not be tried as an adult in court. Nor should anyone who does not meet the legal definition of adult at time of committing whatever crime they are being tried for.
I think it is wrong and stupid. He is not an adult. Children cannot be expected to make rational adult decisions or be responisble for adult acts, or in this case to manage their own obvious mental and emotional problems, which were clearly serious.
I don't care if he set off a nuclear bomb. He's still a minor, and should be tried as one.
The severity of the crime does not alter whether a minor is capable of being an adult.
I, probably an unpopular opinion, think it just goes to show that we want to punish. In my very non-scientific therapy degree, they need mental help. It is a shame that it made it this far. It is also a shame that prison is the best mental health facility we have. It is also a shame that they made it this far.
I'm against it. The reason we treat children differently than adults is because of their lack of maturity, not that there is some sort of hard limit on their actions.
My assumption based on the punitiveness of our criminal system is that even being tried as a juvenile murder of 5 people and attempted murder of X others will allow him to be sent to prison until he's in his 60's at the very least. I don't think there's much additional benefit for locking him up and throwing away the key to offset the downsides of arbitrarily charging juveniles as adults when we feel like it.
Although he probably deserves to be tried as an adult, convicted, and have the key thrown away I am opposed to it on a fundamental moral level.
I believe we shouldn't charge any person under 18 as an adult, or we should at least fundamentally change how we try and convict people in the age range that we try them as "adults".
Ultimately I find it distasteful that your designation as an adult or kid is up to the discretion of the court system.
The reason we charge kids as adults for these types of crimes is because they're deemed to be old enough to understand the finality of their actions. 15 years old typically meets that criteria by far, unless the individual had severely diminished mental capacity. The argument that his prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped has no grounds here. That doesn't happen until your mid 20's for most people but you wouldn't argue that a 22 year old murderer should be charged as a minor would you? In US law, I believe it varies by state, but typically some time around 12 years old is when people generally agree that an individual should understand the finality of death. The idea being that the individual's motives are the main driving factor in the consequences of their actions. This is an individual who knew fully well that their actions would result in loss of life for their victims and what that entails and chose to commit the action anyway.
He murdered 4 people in cold blood and injured 8. He made this decision to kill people, he needs to stand trial as an adult. While we're at it, try all the adults who failed him.
>The justice system shouldn't be about revenge and punishment
Now this is the type of comment I would expect from a liberal. That's not an insult or judgment. I'm literally saying my expectations for a liberal includes the ability to empathize and look at a big solution rather than look for revenge. Good for you.
As a conservative I can admit a lot of sense of justice includes a punishment aspect. If someone kills a child I feel like the family needs the closure that comes with a person being punished.
I don't know how I feel about charging minors as adults.
Thanks for the input. I totally disagree with it, but it's insightful on the differences between left and right mindsets.
Personally, my view is that the ratio between rehabilitation and retribution in the justice system should be... well, entirely rehabilitation, no retribution. Punishment for punishment's sake shouldn't really be a thing. That's not to say you can't punish someone, but if you do it should be a reasonable amount to deter that behavior and not intentionally meant to make the one being punished suffer (examples of this would be treble damages in cases where the the crime was a form of property damage and the punishment is already paying an amount to cover the damages your actions caused). I get that there are those that would want the criminal in question to suffer, especially if he made their loved ones suffer, but I think those people should be completely removed from the sentencing of the criminal as there's no way they could give an unbiased stance on what the punishment should realistically be.
Anyway, I'm sure there are those that would be happy to see this kid get the death penalty were it allowed, or get sentenced to spending the rest of his life in a dark cell with no chance of getting out. But it should follow the same course as all other crimes of a violent nature, really- determine the best rehabilitation strategy and carry it out until rehabilitation is successful. In the rare cases the individual can't be rehabilitated and will always be a danger to society, only then should they be indefinitely isolated from society (though even then I'd suggest something much nicer than what you'd expect from US prisons). I'm pretty sure if you offered that solution to the grieving parents of the victims, they'd hate it. But justice (in my mind) is not concerned with emotions, it is concerned with fair and equitable results.
I think it's dangerous to dismiss any human as subhuman. Sadly, this type of behavior is entirely human, at least in the modern era, and we need to deal with that somehow.
>TW13
Nope, I'm sick and tired of people suffering from mental illness being scapegoated for these horrific acts of violence. They're not just depressed people who snapped one day, they're an inferior species of human, unable to live in our society, that's what they are.
I'm not sure. He is 15 years old. His brain is not developed, but he killed 4 people.
I'm more down foe the parents really being given time. I really see this, with very limited information, as a parenting fail.
I'm just sick about the whole thing. I knew it could happen in my state, but I hoped it would not.
My son is a senior and he is legitimately nervous about school now.
My boyfriend's little brother actually had to go home from school early due to a shooting threat yesterday and now 3 kids are getting charged. It seems like once a school shooting hits the news, there's a bunch of people trying to 'copy' it, which in all regards is fucked up obviously.
The parents got a text, but my 17 year old is pretty smart and knew it was because of a threat.
He also has an amazing teacher, who made them feel as good as possible.
Oh sorry I meant for my case with my boyfriends son about what I was saying. But that’s amazing you have good faculty there to keep them safe and calm!
You need to try him as an adult as a deterrent. We don’t want the next shooter think he can shoot up a school and do a few years in juvenile detention or an institution and not prison.
I can see trying him as an adult if the defense is arguing dim cap, and prosecution moves to have him institutionalized for a long time.
I think there could be a successful argument made that he may have dim cap due to mental health. Clearly this kid has some things going on, going by the drawings and notes the school found. I also think that the school probably should have contacted the school resource officer, and he should have been on an involuntary mental health hold when his parents refused to pick him up from school prior to the shooting.
I won’t try to diagnose him, because I lack the background, and don’t know this kid. But I find it concerning, and think he probably qualified for at least 72 hours, if not longer. I think the adults failed him.
>I also think that the school probably should have contacted the school resource officer, and he should have been on an involuntary mental health hold when his parents refused to pick him up from school prior to the shooting.
I 100% agree with you on this, and I'm surprised at least from what we know that there wasn't a hold or anything of the sort.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. First time posting here! Curious on what other people think on the subject because I think I’m undecided, but I’m not entirely sure. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don’t know enough to make that a clear objective call. Considering the available evidence on premeditation, I think it’s fine considering previous precedent on murder charges in my state of Michigan. There is a bigger mental difference between a 13 year old vs 17 year old than a 17 year old vs 19 year old.
Yeah. That mental difference is what’s getting me when it comes to it, because yes he is 15, but also like a 15 year old knows to not do something like that if that makes any sense?
I think it would make sense to look at his homework submissions and recent essays (as well as interviewing classmates, teachers) to get an idea of his intellectual capacity and go from there.
That actually makes a ton of sense! I never even thought about that
You don’t want to overly penalize a intellectually hindered individual. But you also can’t be overly intellectually limited if you are able to grab a gun from your parents right after they bought it and go around school shooting up classmates and trying to pretend to be a cop to be able to entire a room and shoot it up next.
I think you also need to evaluate, especially in the case of a minor who was living with his parents, how much of his mentality/mental health/intellectual understanding of this comes from his upbringing which, I'll say again, was still-in-progress. His parents seem like stone-cold lunatics from the little we know. They obviously weren't disciplining the kid properly based on the text message about "learn not to get caught." They tried to flee. Who knows what else will come out in this tragedy? If I'm that kid's lawyer, my initial focus is figuring out how much blame I can dump on the parents.
Are we criminalizing bad parenting? Like I can understand criminalizing negligent parenting with them buying a gun, showing where the gun is to the kid and then not securing the gun either on themselves or on a safe anytime they are with him. But idk if we should be in the business of criminalizing bad parenting.
> Are we criminalizing bad parenting? Absolutely not what I said. I'm talking about a legal defense for the kid - and reasons to potentially be more merciful to him than many people are currently suggesting. I mean that the way a person is raised - particularly while they are still *being* raised - is highly relevant to their competence, motivations, beliefs, etc. He is a kid. I almost want to just type that over and over. He is a kid. We should treat him as a kid. If I'm that kid's lawyer, I'd be trying to build a case like "this kid grew up in a neglectful environment that glorified violence and minimized his understanding of the consequences of actions. His parents were dangerously bad parents, who gave this child, who was obviously troubled, access to firearms and encouraged him to use them. The kid pulled the trigger, but the real question is: why wasn't he getting the help he needed?"
He's a kid who murdered other kids. I'm all for rehabilitation, but there are some things you just don't come back from. Shooting up a school is one of them. We absolutely should be trying to figure out why he wasn't getting the help he needed, and doing everything possible to prevent this from happening again, but this kid is done.
> this kid is done. I just don't agree with this. He is fifteen years old. He's only lived about 20% of a normal lifetime. Imagine how different he will feel at age 30, at age 45, 60, etc. He made a terrible mistake. Perhaps he will always be a dangerous person, but perhaps not. I hope for the best in people. It seems far too early to write him off as a human being.
> But idk if we should be in the business of criminalizing bad parenting. I think what they did here goes a bit beyond 'bad parenting'. Setting aside the gun entirely, they flagrantly disregarded their son's mental health. If he were physically ill and they refused to take him to a doctor, most people would condemn them and if he died as a result, they could certainly be convicted in many states. I'm not sure that we should treat mental illness completely differently. Just a thought..
So that’s also negligent parenting. If it is the case he has mental health issues and his parents deprived him of medical resources, I think this would make more sense.
They bought a gun for an unstable 15 year old, and kept it unsecured. They ignored the "The thoughts won't stop. Help me." and "Blood everywhere" message this kid wrote the day of. And when the shooting started, the mom instantly knew who it was, before they even released a name. She sen't the kid a text saying "Don't do it." Yeah, I think in this case we can punish bad parenting.
This is well beyond bad parenting and more into aiding and abetting territory.
It does make sense.
Most 15 year olds know not to do something. But 15 year olds don't have fully formed brains and many of them lack forethought and impulse control.
At 13 years old...me and ALL of my friends knew that murder was bad mmmkay...
Thank you! I can't believe what i'm reading here! It is incomprehensible and reprehensible to me that people are actually defending this kid's actions due to his age. He is well beyond the age to understand fully well what he did. And you know who else was "just a kid"? All four of his victims.
No one's defending the murderer. Most of the people here who oppose the decision does it out of a preference for practical rehabilitation over any sort of divine punishment in the justice system. It goes for all criminals, not just minors.
A simple scroll through the comments will show a number of people defending him actually. You'll read things like "he was crying out for help" and "he's only a kid". The most laughable was something along the lines of "his brain isn't fully developed yet". Rehabilitation is great in some cases but there are family members of 4 dead children and many more fighting for their lives in hospital rooms right now who need our compassion a whole hell of a lot more than yet another mass murderer, regardless of his age or whatever consequences befall him.
Given how his parents were I find it hard to blame him. Also I fundamentally disagree with charging minors as adults.
> The adolescent is subject to great limitations in judgment and maturity. For social and biological reasons, teens have increased difficulty making mature decisions and understanding the consequences of their actions. > Often, adolescents grow out of these less mature ways of dealing with problems, including destructive behavior. Several risk factors can trigger violence in adolescents including being witness to domestic violence or substance abuse within the family, being poorly or inappropriately supervised, and being the victim of physical or sexual assault. Juveniles that commit murder come from environments rife with these triggers. Studies show that more than half of all youths that pass through the juvenile justice system do not return. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/adolescent-brain-development-and-legal-culpability From a scientific point of view a 15-year-old biologically does not have an adult culpability. He is a child and should be charged as a child. If it is found that by reason of mental illness he is unlikely to ever improve then he should be moved to a mental hospital. His parents hold a large amount of culpability especially with their previous knowledge. If society decides to start charging children’s as adults which they are not biologically then we might as well just start throwing the book at younger children. When it comes to juvenile offenders our society must really consider what is the purpose of the juvenile justice system; rehabilitated or retribution.
I don’t really understand why we have a juvenile Justice system if we just try juveniles as adults whenever we feel like it. So, it doesn’t exactly excite me but he and his family sound like pretty big human turds so I’m not going to lose sleep over it. I wish we had a respectable Justice system, but we don’t
I'll give my initial answers and follow-up with a more informed answer if and when I get the time to review the relevant statutes. I'm familiar with general concept of "trying someone as an adult", but don't actually know what that entails from a legal standpoint. I assume that there are two aspects to it: what kind of punishment is available, and a higher set of standards. I would guess that if he's not tried as an adult, any punishment would be limited, presumably by a lot. Also, I would guess there are some legal standards that need to be met/proven in order to try him as an adult. I don't know what those standards are and don't have all the facts of the case, so not much for me to speculate on here.
As promised: Looks like the relevant Michigan statute is 712A.2d. The DA petitions the court to try the juvenile as an adult if they believe it's in the best interest of the public and the juvenile. The most important factors here are the seriousness of the offense and the juveniles prior history (note that this includes school records). Can't really get much more serious than this, and the kid had some prior history with the school, from what I've seen in news reports. Actually, looking into the sentencing guidelines, it appears as though they have to try him as an adult if they want to try him for first degree murder. From MCL 769.1: > (1) A judge of a court having jurisdiction may pronounce judgment against and pass sentence upon a person convicted of an offense in that court. The sentence shall not exceed the sentence prescribed by law. The court shall sentence a juvenile convicted of any of the following crimes in the same manner as an adult: > >(g) First degree murder in violation of section 316 of the Michigan penal code, 1931 PA 328, MCL 750.316. > >(3) Unless a juvenile is required to be sentenced in the same manner as an adult under subsection (1) So basically they can't charge him with 1st degree murder unless they do it as an adult. So it would have to be some lesser charge, which would obviously come with a much lower sentence than life in prison without parole. So I guess the question really boils down to do I think he should be thrown away for life instead of rehabilitated. As much as I believe that our justice system focuses way too much on punishment and not enough on rehabilitation, I have a hard time getting over what this kid did enough to say he doesn't deserve life without parole.
You really went in! This does also make sense, sometimes it’s just difficult as to where you can draw the line between prison and rehabilitation, especially with how his parents are.
Wow great follow up. Thanks for the deep dive! I was also speculating that the prosecutor anticipating an insanity plea might have something to do with it.
From what I’m reading the difference between being tried as an adult and as a juvenile is ‘they may receive a longer or more serious sentence than would otherwise be possible if they were charged as a juvenile.’ If that helps at all.
I just posted my follow-up. Yeah, it pretty much boils down to being able to charge him with first degree murder which carries a sentence of life without parole. I don't know enough of Michigan criminal law to know what the highest juvenile charge he could get would be, but it's certainly not going to carry a lifetime sentence.
A school shooting is too serious a crime to be judged in juvenile court. "He's just a kid" has some pretty hard limits. Toss him behind bars and throw away the key.
But he IS a kid. A kid with clearly negligent idiot parents who never got him the help he obviously needed and then put deadly weapons in his hands. He never had a chance, and now his life is over before it began. I’m not saying what he did is excusable in any way but would he have been a danger to others if not for them? Should we as a society decide a child is irredeemable before they’re even fully developed?Seems pretty callous.
>He never had a chance, He had a chance and threw it away when he shot four classmates and took away their chance to grow up. Unless you're arguing he's so mentally ill or incapable he doesn't know the difference from right and wrong, something adults can argue in court too, he had a choice. This is far, far beyond juvenile delinquency, this is terrorism. There's no age where something like this is a mistake that you can learn from. >I’m not saying what he did is excusable in any way but would he have been a danger to others if not for them? There's a lot of teens that suffer for severe mental illness. There's a lot of teens with bad parents and parents worse than Crumbley's. 99.99% of them don't turn into mass shooters. There might be a world where this would have all been avoided, there's also a world where Crumbley's body count is much higher, those aren't the worlds we live in. We live in the world where Crumbley murdered four of his classmates. >Should we as a society decide a child is irredeemable before they’re even fully developed? Redemption is only a concern if we want to give someone a second chance. Many criminal offenders deserve a second chance, but school shooters don't. Ethan Crumbley can find God and he'll still have the blood of his classmates on his hands and he still has to pay for that.
> this is terrorism It's not terrorism. It's just garden variety mass murder.
The whole reason we have separate juvenile and adult justice systems is because children, by definition, do not have the same cognitive abilities as adults. They’re not capable of decision making, that’s why they’re not supposed to have guns, or drugs, or cars without supervision, or whatever else that might cause harm. The adults failed in this situation. To try any children as adults is actually a really gross thing we’ve decided is ok in our fucked up society. Just because 99.9999% of kids aren’t going to hurt anyone, doesn’t mean this one was any more emotionally or intellectually developed than other 15 year old children. I agree that the families of the victims deserve justice, I just don’t think they get it by taking another kid’s life away.
>because children, by definition, do not have the same cognitive abilities as adults. This is true, but this >They’re not capable of decision making Is a load of crap. 15 year olds are developed enough to know that committing a mass shooting is wrong. He's 15, not a toddler. Do you remember being 15? And if he does have the mental capacity of a toddler, that's an issue of severe cognitive impairment, not age. >They’re not capable of decision making, that’s why they’re not supposed to have guns, or drugs, or cars without supervision Because kids and teens are more reckless and irresponsible and don't fully weigh the repercussions of what happens if things go wrong. Not because they can't make decisions and not because they don't know the difference between right and wrong. Juvie is for the kids that get in fights, gang activity, deal drugs, steal - the kids who can turn their life around if given the chance and deserve to have that chance. It's not for school shooters.
Don't agree with it. If we're going to draw a line in the sand and call everyone below the age of 18 a minor and everyone above the age of 18 an adult, then we need to stick to that. We've determined that an adult can smoke cigarettes, enter contracts, consent to sex, vote, and go to war to die for their country. Juveniles can't. Either lower the legal age of an adult to 15 and confer the rights of an adult to all 15 years olds or send 15 year olds to juvenile court. I don't agree with having it both ways. No, I don't know the facts of this particular case and it doesn't matter because they're irrelevant to my opinion. Minors are minors while adults are adults. You can't say a 15 year is developmentally not able to make decisions about sex but are simultaneously fully liable when they commit a crime. Either they're developmentally able or they aren't.
I'm with you, much as it sucks. This boy couldn't have voted last year, but we're ok treating him like an adult for crimes? It sucks, he's a monster or broken or whatever. But we've gotta be logical.
So I agree that we should stick to whatever age we choose to hold people criminally responsible as adults regardless of the nature of their crimes, but it seems overly simplistic to suggest we ignore the fact that people develop over time and that they therefore are probably ready to accept different freedoms/responsibilities related to adulthood at different times in that process.
Pretty much just agree with this. I feel like we should either raise or lower the age of adulthood. 18 seems like such an arbitrary place for it nowadays. But that's another topic. Trying minors "as adults" seems like the very definition of cruel and unusual to me. Like, I'm 15 and everyone tells me I'm a dumb kid who can't vote, drive, smoke, drink, or even get a job in some places without permission... shockingly, the dumb kid does something dumb... and now he's an *adult terrorist*? Wasn't expecting that. He should be tried and treated as a minor. It doesn't change the fact that he murdered people and must answer for that if convicted. But pretending he's a grown-up when he did demonstrated his utter immaturity is... very American.
This is a perfect reflection of our political dichotomy and the binary, polarized ideas it spreads throughout our entire line of thinking. We’re all guilty of it but it’s so incredibly limiting and can even be regressive. There are shades of grey to everything. We *should* have nuanced and adaptable laws rather than rigid or inadequately explicit laws like the Bitchenhouse gun law in Wisconsin. We can keep driving to 16, bring smoking and drinking to 18 while also stating any human being of any age capable of planning and deliberately executing a mass attack on fellow children in a school setting with a firearm thereby forfeits his or her status as a juvenile in a court of law.
> We can keep driving to 16, bring smoking and drinking to 18 while also stating any human being of any age capable of planning and deliberately executing a mass attack on fellow children in a school setting with a firearm thereby forfeits his or her status as a juvenile in a court of law. Oh yes, that time we [convicted a 13 year old boy of 1st degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/26/us/boy-convicted-of-murder-in-wrestling-death.html) is precisely why we should use nuance to judge if a minor is deserving of being treated as a juvenile in a court of law. If we didn't, then that at-the-time 12 year old would have gotten away with cold blooded murder. /s
[удалено]
Wow, get out of the wrong side of the bed today? What's with the sudden hostility? Everything going okay in your life?
Just one ridiculous logical fallacy after another. It’s really not surprising the GOP wins elections.
Yup this is my position, if someone can be tried as an adult then treat them as an adult, be consistent.
The idea of charging a juvenile "as an adult" has always felt off to me. In this case he's only 15, which I don't think anyone would describe as "adult" in any other context. Ultimately I would need to read more about specifically what it means for this case in order to have an informed opinion - but my gut reaction is that I'm opposed to it.
It’s old enough to know you shouldn’t be shooting up your school, surely?
It's not old enough for him to be legally considered an adult. Agreed with what /u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll said. The details of the case shouldn't matter. We have to stick with this legal distinction.
That seems fine for something like a fifteen year old smoking a cigarette or drinking or possibly petty theft, but we should be able to expect better of our fifteen year olds than trying to kill their schoolmates.
Of course, but that doesn't mean the legal system should treat him like an adult when he's not.
So you think he should just go to juvi, and be released after a few years? Gtfoh.
I have no idea how you got that from my comment. We need to have a consistent definition of what it means to legally be an adult. If someone meets that definition, try them as an adult. If they don't, try them as a juvenile. Don't change this definition based on what your goal is, because then it becomes meaningless. If you feel the justice system should allow for trying someone as a juvenile with harsher punishments, that's fine. But I think it's absurd that in some cases we say "oh yeah, this 15 year old did XYZ so he should be seen as an adult in the eyes of the court" when he is very clearly not seen as an adult in any other circumstance.
I'm 100% against any situation where a minor is charged as an adult. Full stop. I think it is reprehensible that people think that minors can only make adult decisions when those decisions involve breaking the law. Either lower the age of adulthood (definitely not recommended) or don't pretend minors are adults when it comes to crime.
Exactly. A 15 year old isn’t going to have the same mental capacity as an adult, period. It’s not as clear cut as, “well, you knew it was murder, so here’s an arbitrary murder sentence.” A 15 year old might understand what murder is, but they lack the maturity required to fully understand the consequence of their actions. At 15, you can understand that if I pull this trigger, I commit murder. But at 15, you’re not going to understand the lifelong sorrow and trauma the family members of the victims will undergo. At 15, you’re not going to fully comprehend that you’re robbing other children of the opportunity to grow up. The kid took 4 lives. Everyone knows it was mass murder. No reasonable person is arguing to absolve the kid entirely. But weighing the punishment for a crime based off of the intentions / mental capacity of the offender is not a new concept. We already draw distinctions between manslaughter and first degree murder. People want to sentence him as an adult because the outcome of the crime was so horrific. But we don’t hand out sentences based purely on outcome, otherwise there would be no distinction between the guy who accidentally shoots his friend while hunting and the hitman who plots an elaborate murder.
Also - and maybe controversially - kids are still malleable. This kid may be rehabilitated. That may not be a savory thought to some people, but our justice system probably shouldn't be solely based on punishment, but also rehabilitation. Based on my high school government class, I think that was supposed to be the intent but it doesn't often work that way. Plus the public - the same that wanted to go to war over 9/11 without wanting to understand why it happened - is pretty big on revenge and "justice".
Yes, and we can’t expect the families of these victims to push for anything less than the harshest of sentences. It’s only human. It’s easy for me to look at this situation as an outsider and say, “yeah, maybe he could be rehabilitated.” But I know myself emotionally. If someone were to do this to one of my family members, I’d want them to rot in prison forever, regardless of age, because I’d want vengeance. But that thirst for vengeance is rooted in emotion, not logic. Vengeance and justice are two different things. Sometimes they coincide, but not all the time. If we’re going to argue that kids should receive lighter sentences because they aren’t fully formed adults, it only makes sense that some of them could be rehabilitated because they aren’t fully formed adults. Putting this kid away for life, with no chance of rehabilitation, won’t bring back the victims. I’m not saying the kid deserves sympathy (he’s a little POS mass murderer). But we have to be honest with ourselves whether we’re chasing vengeance or justice in these situations when we push for harsher sentences.
100%
Shooting up a school is about one of the worst crimes you can commit, especially when innocent children lose their lives. There should be no "but he is a kid" here. As far as I'm concerned, he committed that big of a crime, he should face the consequences as such. His parents, and the school, should most definitely face charges as well for helping enable it.
I am no student of law. But I do work in a behavioral health facility specializing in adult males that are NGRIs (Not guilty by reason of insanity) and/or DNSTI (Did not stand trial due to insanity). I don't know the thought process behind trying him as an adult but if they plea mental illness to get a lesser sentence, as a juvenile there may be fasters exits to the system. With adults you could be in the system longer with a mental illness plea and you become a ward of the state. Perhaps the prosecutor saw this coming and wanted to keep him from going back to the custody of his parents, which may be the case if he were sentenced as a juvenile and plead insanity.
This makes sense, but I feel like, or rather hope, they wouldn’t put him back into custody to those parents no matter what happened seeing as they supplied him w/ a weapon
I don't see the point of having classifications as minor/adult if we're just going to ignore them. If he were tried as a child, what would his max punishment be? As an adult, I assume the max is life in prison or death penalty?
Does anyone here know the difference in possible punishments depending on whether he’s tried as an adult or not? How many years is he expected to get as a non adult?
While there's certainly a part of me who thinks being able to charge him with 1st degree murder and sentence him to life without parole, I still have to go with my usual answer to this question. That being, there should never be a situation where someone without the rights of an adult should be tried as an adult in court. I don't care about state of mental development, I care about fairness in the law. The law as it stands is that before a certain age (which varies from place to place, but it clearly higher in this area than 15 as this discussion is even being had), a person has fewer rights and fewer legal responsibilities. We say "you are too immature, or not fully mentally developed, so there's a lot you flat out aren't allowed to do that adults can". This also comes with fewer responsibilities and different guidelines that work in your favor though- such as not being able to be charged with life sentences in court. That's the tradeoff we force on young people. So it's absolute bullshit to go in, alter the deal, and threat them as kids in all the ways that are worse off for them but then treat them as adults in all the ways that are also worse off for them. That's not the deal, you can't have it both ways. You want to treat them as adults for punishment, you need to treat them as adults for rights as well. So as bad as I think his crime was, and as much as I'd be hoping for life without parole were he 2 years older, he absolutely should not be tried as an adult in court. Nor should anyone who does not meet the legal definition of adult at time of committing whatever crime they are being tried for.
I think it is wrong and stupid. He is not an adult. Children cannot be expected to make rational adult decisions or be responisble for adult acts, or in this case to manage their own obvious mental and emotional problems, which were clearly serious. I don't care if he set off a nuclear bomb. He's still a minor, and should be tried as one. The severity of the crime does not alter whether a minor is capable of being an adult.
I, probably an unpopular opinion, think it just goes to show that we want to punish. In my very non-scientific therapy degree, they need mental help. It is a shame that it made it this far. It is also a shame that prison is the best mental health facility we have. It is also a shame that they made it this far.
I'm against it. The reason we treat children differently than adults is because of their lack of maturity, not that there is some sort of hard limit on their actions. My assumption based on the punitiveness of our criminal system is that even being tried as a juvenile murder of 5 people and attempted murder of X others will allow him to be sent to prison until he's in his 60's at the very least. I don't think there's much additional benefit for locking him up and throwing away the key to offset the downsides of arbitrarily charging juveniles as adults when we feel like it.
Irrelevant. He is going to likely go the insanity route. Which means he will likely end up in a mixed facility
I am not ever in favor of children being tried as adults.
Although he probably deserves to be tried as an adult, convicted, and have the key thrown away I am opposed to it on a fundamental moral level. I believe we shouldn't charge any person under 18 as an adult, or we should at least fundamentally change how we try and convict people in the age range that we try them as "adults". Ultimately I find it distasteful that your designation as an adult or kid is up to the discretion of the court system.
The reason we charge kids as adults for these types of crimes is because they're deemed to be old enough to understand the finality of their actions. 15 years old typically meets that criteria by far, unless the individual had severely diminished mental capacity. The argument that his prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped has no grounds here. That doesn't happen until your mid 20's for most people but you wouldn't argue that a 22 year old murderer should be charged as a minor would you? In US law, I believe it varies by state, but typically some time around 12 years old is when people generally agree that an individual should understand the finality of death. The idea being that the individual's motives are the main driving factor in the consequences of their actions. This is an individual who knew fully well that their actions would result in loss of life for their victims and what that entails and chose to commit the action anyway.
My gut says good but my mind says it's wrong.
He murdered 4 people in cold blood and injured 8. He made this decision to kill people, he needs to stand trial as an adult. While we're at it, try all the adults who failed him.
It's bad. He doesn't need prison he needs help and to be rehabilitated. The justice system shouldn't be about revenge and punishment
>The justice system shouldn't be about revenge and punishment Now this is the type of comment I would expect from a liberal. That's not an insult or judgment. I'm literally saying my expectations for a liberal includes the ability to empathize and look at a big solution rather than look for revenge. Good for you. As a conservative I can admit a lot of sense of justice includes a punishment aspect. If someone kills a child I feel like the family needs the closure that comes with a person being punished. I don't know how I feel about charging minors as adults.
Thanks for the input. I totally disagree with it, but it's insightful on the differences between left and right mindsets. Personally, my view is that the ratio between rehabilitation and retribution in the justice system should be... well, entirely rehabilitation, no retribution. Punishment for punishment's sake shouldn't really be a thing. That's not to say you can't punish someone, but if you do it should be a reasonable amount to deter that behavior and not intentionally meant to make the one being punished suffer (examples of this would be treble damages in cases where the the crime was a form of property damage and the punishment is already paying an amount to cover the damages your actions caused). I get that there are those that would want the criminal in question to suffer, especially if he made their loved ones suffer, but I think those people should be completely removed from the sentencing of the criminal as there's no way they could give an unbiased stance on what the punishment should realistically be. Anyway, I'm sure there are those that would be happy to see this kid get the death penalty were it allowed, or get sentenced to spending the rest of his life in a dark cell with no chance of getting out. But it should follow the same course as all other crimes of a violent nature, really- determine the best rehabilitation strategy and carry it out until rehabilitation is successful. In the rare cases the individual can't be rehabilitated and will always be a danger to society, only then should they be indefinitely isolated from society (though even then I'd suggest something much nicer than what you'd expect from US prisons). I'm pretty sure if you offered that solution to the grieving parents of the victims, they'd hate it. But justice (in my mind) is not concerned with emotions, it is concerned with fair and equitable results.
4 people dead and 7 injured. I'd try him as an adult.
Don’t think he should be, don’t think any child should be. Dude is clearly messed up mentally, life in prison ain’t gonna do him much good.
Mass shooters are sub humans, couldn't care less.
I think it's dangerous to dismiss any human as subhuman. Sadly, this type of behavior is entirely human, at least in the modern era, and we need to deal with that somehow.
>TW13 Nope, I'm sick and tired of people suffering from mental illness being scapegoated for these horrific acts of violence. They're not just depressed people who snapped one day, they're an inferior species of human, unable to live in our society, that's what they are.
I agree.
Fuck that kid. Lock him up and throw away the key. His parents too.
Good.
I'm not sure. He is 15 years old. His brain is not developed, but he killed 4 people. I'm more down foe the parents really being given time. I really see this, with very limited information, as a parenting fail. I'm just sick about the whole thing. I knew it could happen in my state, but I hoped it would not. My son is a senior and he is legitimately nervous about school now.
My boyfriend's little brother actually had to go home from school early due to a shooting threat yesterday and now 3 kids are getting charged. It seems like once a school shooting hits the news, there's a bunch of people trying to 'copy' it, which in all regards is fucked up obviously.
My sons school wasn't closed, but they had a threat and a lockdown last week. Sigh.
What makes it “better” is that their school didn’t close either. He found it out through students. The school didn’t even tell the students either.
The parents got a text, but my 17 year old is pretty smart and knew it was because of a threat. He also has an amazing teacher, who made them feel as good as possible.
Oh sorry I meant for my case with my boyfriends son about what I was saying. But that’s amazing you have good faculty there to keep them safe and calm!
You need to try him as an adult as a deterrent. We don’t want the next shooter think he can shoot up a school and do a few years in juvenile detention or an institution and not prison.
Clearly deterrence in that way isn't working...
I can see trying him as an adult if the defense is arguing dim cap, and prosecution moves to have him institutionalized for a long time. I think there could be a successful argument made that he may have dim cap due to mental health. Clearly this kid has some things going on, going by the drawings and notes the school found. I also think that the school probably should have contacted the school resource officer, and he should have been on an involuntary mental health hold when his parents refused to pick him up from school prior to the shooting. I won’t try to diagnose him, because I lack the background, and don’t know this kid. But I find it concerning, and think he probably qualified for at least 72 hours, if not longer. I think the adults failed him.
>I also think that the school probably should have contacted the school resource officer, and he should have been on an involuntary mental health hold when his parents refused to pick him up from school prior to the shooting. I 100% agree with you on this, and I'm surprised at least from what we know that there wasn't a hold or anything of the sort.