When Kids Kill: David Loftus

It is important to maintain the distinction between adults who can be tried for murder and children who should not be, because of diminished judgment and lack of capacity for consent. Otherwise, it would not be any more of a crime to have sex with a “willing” 14-year-old than an adult woman, and insurance rates for teen drivers would be the same as for the rest of us.

The problem with the current justice system is that it offers no more than an almost all-or-nothing choice between trying a child for murder and imprisoning him for life -- without giving him the opportunity to grow up, to complete an education, and have a shot at becoming a law-abiding member of society -- versus convicting him as a juvenile and turning him loose at 21, when he is most likely unprepared to be or become a good citizen and runs a high risk of further damaging himself or others.

While it may be impossible to change Pennsylvania law in time to apply it to this case, similar situations will surely arise in the future. Some middle way, a mechanism that allows for keeping individuals convicted of heinous crimes in prison beyond the age of 21, with the potential for parole at some future date if they have shown repentance, good behavior, completed their education, exhibited the ability to perform productive work, and other mitigating factors that suggest they could join society.

In this particular case, I have seen no description in the news stories of where an 11-year-old got his hands on a 20-gauge shotgun. I have to guess the owner was his father, who had gotten the victim pregnant and intended to marry her without taking the trouble to integrate his son and his intended and her children -- the reported point of jealous contention between the killer and the victim -- into a semi-harmonious, potential future family. If indeed the boy’s father was responsible for the gun as well as the murderer, he should be held accountable as, at best, a negligent accessory to murder.