12 Year Old Murderer Sentenced To 30 Years

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

A South Carolina court has sentenced a boy who killed his grandparents when he was 12 years old to 30 years on each count to be served concurrently.
He was on antidepressant drugs when the murder was committed and said the drugs drove him to killing his grandparents after he had an argument with them over another matter.

Do you think he had mitigating circumstances?
Do you consider a child of 12 who was being treated for a psychiatric condition at the time and was under the influence of drug treatment should have been found guilty of murder?
Do you think 30 years imprisonment is a just sentence in the circumstances?
What do you think of a court that would make a judgement like this?

Well I remember reading something about this. See date of 1st post. Of course there was nothing of the ruling or anything of what happend but I will bet that they child never saw any time in the big house. 1. due to his age and 2 because of the circumstances of the whole thing. If anyone knows of what happen it would be nice being that this thread was stared in feb of 05

[y4nzi 0]

It's hard to say, I mean technically he is still a minor at 12 years old and yes he DID commit a crime that was horrible. Then comes the blame game, who to blame? 1. The drugs - yes drugs can have many side effects and may cause you to do things you normally wouldn't, whether they were the sole cause of MURDER is questionable. 2. His psychiatric condition (depression) - messes with your mind, he may not have realized the consequences or judged the situation properly3. His parents - yes the upbringing may have been bad, but the kid has his own brain and mind, you can't always blame the parents (although they might have had a part), in the end the decision to kill someone came from the kid himself4. HIM - I guess this is where the court took it since they sentenced him to 30 years in jail...It's a pretty harsh penalty for a 12 year old kid (with all the surrounding circumstances) but i suppose if that's where the justice system took it, we'll have to leave it at that.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

From a psychological point of view, if he did it once he's capable of doing it again.ESPECIALLY if he was on medication when it happened, that is even more of a sign that it's obviously not helping him.In terms of his physical age and using that as a determination as to what his punishment should be, it's not a good method. It may not be his fault, no, but at the same time he has showed that he lacks the control over his own behaviors, thereby endangering others not only in the present, but in the future as well.

[iGuest 3]

I watched this earlier on TV, the mother abandoned her chidren and they went to live with his grandparents, his dad 'allegedly' abused him as a child, and he even made a paddle to make a point to misbehaving.I don't think 30 years was a fair sentence though, not at all. His defense attorney should've gone for the plea bargin.

 

[iGuest 3]

This is a proposterous and totally unjust situation this boy finds himself in. No child no matter what the circumastances should be sent to 30 years in prison for murder...A 12 ys old child is just that, a CHILD and therefore is unaware of the seriousness of what they are doing...This why we don't let 12 yr old drink, 12 yr olds drive, 12 yr old join the army or police, 12 yr old have a gun licence, 12 yr old marry or enter adult clubs ...Because they do not have the maturity to make adult decisions at 12...Now this boy was on medictaion and therefore it makes this decision even more crazy...I have seen instances in courts throughout the civilised world where ADULTS have had accusations of murder turned into manslaughter or 2 /3rd degree murder BECAUSE THEY ARE ON MEDICATION and that was seen as mitigating against finding them guilty!! This is utter madness and quite honestly flies in the face of the way God would judge a child!! A CHILD should at all times be treated as a child, the idea of treating a child in a court house as an adult is simply idiotic...AND unjust.

 

Are we better judges than God. This decision proves we are not!! God bless him and his family because they are being put through this horrible second tragedy..

[iGuest 3]

 Just thought I would put this out there: my daughter has taken Zoloft in the past and had similar side effects.  She has waken me in the middle of the night to say she felt like killing herself or me.  I truely believe the medicine had everything in the world to do with the killing. We had sence enough to stop the medication before anything terrible happened.

-reply by Penny

[iGuest 3]

I agree with jack177.He killed 2 people and therefore he has to pay for it.You all sympathise with the kid cos of his sentence but u forget the 2 people who were trying to help and were murdered 4 it.-reply by iano13

[iGuest 3]

This kid should pay for what he did, it's his fault for being on drugs. I don't think the punishment should be 30 years for each person though, he could go to jail for like 2-4 years then get some real parents that won't let him take drugs.

[Strikee 1]

It's sad when you hear such things. A kid at the age of 12 doesnt have a right judgement so he cannot be sent to prison for something he doesnt even realise how serious it is.If we think about it , he was sent to jail for almost THREE TIMES his life so far , it's impossible for him to know how much that means. The juries should have thinked better about their decision.Only when he will get older ,sadly ..inside.. , he will start to know the gravity of the things he did , but keeping him there for 30 years just means a life lost in vain.I wonder if he regrets what he did

[anwiii 17]

this discussion is very tricky in my eyes. obviously, anyone who commits a crime, should do the time. at the same time, the punishment should fit the crime. how do you compare the punishment with the crime? with mitigating circumstance(extenuating circumstance).this kid was put on medication. not by his choice. fact is, depression meds don't work for everyone. that's why when you get on one, the doctors usually keep changing the meds or the dosage for most people. this is a FACT and it can be seen on national television when they advertise depressant meds and put disclaimers INCLUDING a reverse effect of becoming more depressed.i'm not a medical doctor and i don't really understand the physiology, but our thoughts are highly controlled by the chemicals our body produces. people who are depressed are lacking certain chemicals and need drugs to balance the chemicals that the body should be producing but isn't. this is why you hear the term "chemically imbalanced" alot when referring to disabilities like depression.whenever you get diagnosed with depression, the psychiatrist will issue you a drug or multiple drugs to control depression and anxiety. there is no exact science in issuing meds for each individual person. so the doctor will have to monitor the effects of the meds given by regular appointments. for most, it's a trial and error thing which means the doctor will always be changing the prescriptions until he finds something that works for that individual. what does that mean? people who are depressed and anxious because of their depression are used as guinea pigs until the right balance is found for each individuals system.in the meantime, people can feel even more depressed, more anxious, more irritable or angry until the right chemicals are found that works.so the real question in a court of law that has to be PROVEN before anyone could be found guilty on their own accord is....if a person wasn't taking any meds, would that person still have murdered? also, by taking the meds, did it increase a chance of a person to commit murder given the person's already deppresive and irritable state. a question has to be asked. was the medication working? or was the medication not working?these questions could be asked of adults who commited murder while on medication. but what about a child who has no choice but to take something that might not work....and even worse....have a reverse effect. medication that is given by a doctor and enforced by the parents to take whether in works or not.this situation is FAR from a drug user who is taking lsd and commits a murder. that person CHOSE to take that drug. and maybe there are mitigating circumstance to dictate that it wasn't murder, but MANSLAUGHTER....but that person still made a choice and should be punished for it....especially when making a choice to take an illegal drug.what makes this an interesting case is we really have to define what is chemically imbalanced and what is chemically balanced. we also have to go deeper and define what the meaning of life is since a lot of people are actually born chemically imbalanced according to doctors.....because it seems to me....when handing out drugs to the depressed and mentally ill, they are defining how a person should be. is it up to the doctors to define that? because if they are allowed to define that, then we are literally putting our life in their hands to make us "better". and when we commit the act of murder, who's fault will it then lie on when we put our life in the hands of a doctor?anyone who says drugs don't affect someone where they should always be liable for their actions is full of it!!!! especially when we are taking about chemicals that can influence a thought process. and more especially when a child has no choice but to take the chemicals inside his/her own body because it is always being enforced by the parent or gaurdian.then, in this case, there is the question....why was the child living with the grandparents and not the parents? could this innocent child be screwed up already by past events that wasn't his/her own fault?also...when dealing with people who are depressed, a simple answer given by most is to stop staying in the environment you're in to cause the depression. sometimes that advice could lead to something like murder.i was very shocked to hear that a child....who has very little rights, was commited to 15 years for each murder for a total of 30 years. i am normally one to believe in an eye for an eye...but there will always be exceptions....or mitigating circumstances....or extenuating circumstances. it's obvious...with the little i read in this case, that the overall child's mentality was forced on him in regards to many issues and the child can NOT be held accountable for his complete actions in killing two people.i'm not saying that the kid should go free and be put in foster care. BUT, the kid, at the very least, should be put on psychiatric evaluation until the one who judged people(in this case, doctors) can safely admit this person back in to society, knowing that this child, who still may hold problems, can fit it with every day life without the possibility of harming anyone else. including him/herself.now this is an old topic but i felt a need to write about it because believe it or not, this type of thing happens every day...even if it doesn't go to the extremes of "killing" someone. i say killing instead of murdering because for murder, it has to be proven that it was premeditated without any psychological influence.should the child be given the same sentance if he wasn't affected or influenced by any drugs? no. why? because the drugs were only part of the problem. take away the drugs, and you will find more problems that influenced the child.there are a lot of problems in society that society doesn't account for when describing what people should look like and act like. a person can be too fat....to skinny...be hyper....be withdrawn....not able to get that A in school that is a common goal in society. all those things can have an effect on people and change their chemical balance. but when a child is constantly reminded that he's messed up because he has to take medication, what is the actual worth of life to that child? is it more worth it? or is it less worth it?i personally believe that it's not just the medication that might work to make a child better, it's the love and discipline that works in combination with the drugs forced on a child. it's the idea that a child was born a certain way and we cannot just change the inner being of a child by giving him/her medication...but accepting the child for who he is and showing it be loving him. not by forcing medication to change him, but finding a way for that child to know he is loved. parents aren't perfect. they are far from it. they make mistake just like everyone else. most just give up when they don't find a way to love the child in the right way for the child to understand. they feel they have done everything they could for the child. the fact still remains though that there is a purpose in a parents to where if you aren't getting the right results, there is always another way...and maybe that way is unknown to the parents at the time.....but it DOESN'T mean that there isn't another way. it just means the parents didn't give it the full attention it deserved....and to never give up to the possibilities.so when should a child be held responsible for their actions? ALWAYS! i mean come on....when a child spills a drink on the floor, he/she already feels bad....now has to hear it from another person how bad he/she is. there are better ways to teach and guide rather than focus on just the negative. and some parents will always fail to realize one basic fact....that sometimes a child can teach the parent. unfortunately....most parents feel they ALWAYS need to teach the child because they are older and wiser....but is that always the case???yea, i know this is an old topic....and i would love to know how the appeal went because i don't think the judge took all the facts in the case into consideration when making a decision unless the childs lawyer was just VERY incompetent. my guess is, there was an appeal, and the sentance was reduced DRASTICALLY! if not, this is just one of many cases where a victim has to do the time because of the REAL injustices of this world that many people don't have a clue about and will sentence anyone for the surfacy crap that people will do without looking deeper for the mitigating circumstances.

[iGuest 3]

A child never murders for no reason. If a kid is messed up in the head its because something is wrong in their lives. Maybe not the parents. Maybe the child has been bullied at school, maybe it is his parents, maybe he was under the influence of drugs but because he suffers from depression. You can't sentence a kid to 30 years inprisonment when they arent even legally allowed to vote or have sex? Also don't you think the moral punishment would be enough? He has to live with what he did for the rest of his life which is worse than any prison sentence. But on the other hand what he did was wrong to our values and ethics and he should bear the consiquences, but not that the extreme of 30 years.

Replying to Bash

[Darkyo13 0]

i think that boy should be punished but 30years is too much he is still young maybe after 5 6 years of prison he will change and become a better person also maybe he won't need to take drugs and so on but as i said he is young to take 30 years fromg any young guy/girl is to horrible when you are older over 30yo then is not the same don't you think soi also understand that kid somehow because i was taking antideppresive drugs too for 6 months i was very iracible and got nervouse from almost nothingbut finnaly i stepped over it and now im fine

[fermin25 3]

I am always with the justice...But my point of view is different to all the people. My point of view is if you make something you have to pay it. So this 12 year old boy can be a child but he is guilty because there are two people here (the grandparents)who are dead and the justice can?t obvious this. I am so tired about hear everywhere the people saying that a person who is in psyquiatric treatment don?t know what they are doing. I am medical student and I had treated with psiquiatric guys and I sure you that they know what they are doing almost all the time. So I think that the problem here maybe is the sentence because 30 years in the jail maybe is a lot of time to this crime. Maybe a 10 year sentence was a better sentence. Although you know, the court thougth that maybe this guy was a real danger for the society and keeping here a lot of time in the jail will avoid more human harmfuls.So that is my opinion and maybe will be different to a lot of you. Regards.

[anwiii 17]

really? and how would you sentence a jaywalker who acidently made a car swerve, hit a pole and kill the person inside the car?you brush up on your english and should look in to going to medical school here in the u.s.. some of our programs here are top notch....that is if you're qualified to get in.think back when you were 12. do you remember what you were doing? how many 12 year olds have murdered someone? do you know? the boy was 12. i don't condone what he did, but he is young enough to be rehabilitated. his grandparents wouldn't have even lived 30 years more. this isn't a life for a life. the punishment doesn't even fit the crime LOGICALLY.it's easy to pass judgement without looking at the facts. you are just one of a few that have proved my point in this case. when we are adults, know right from wrong, should be acountable for our actions, and sane, sure....let's give those guys 30 years. when i kid does it, it's just as bad, but you're taking away a childs life for 30 years. why was he even born? this is an attempt to control and OWN people by the countries government. the more sentences they make like this one, the more the government has control over the people through the precedence of past court cases. next thing you'll know, they will start sending 5 year olds to jail because they crossed the street illegally when the parents weren't watching them, making a car swerve, hitting a pole, and killing the driver.use your brain. especially if you're gonna be treating people and helping them.

[iAssistant 1]

This really happened? I our country (Philippines) when a person is minor, he/she can't be convicted but he/she go under the custody of DSWD. Well, laws are different from different country but I wish they should give the child a chance to learn and to grow into responsible being than putting him into jail until he dies