Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for a fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.



Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

But what is the POINT of all of that? These two are lost effing causes. I’d rather load them into a rocket and fire them into the sun than waste any money/time/resources on their imprisonment and/or mental health care. Seriously, f*** them.

Because we degrade ourselves and become no better than murderers ourselves when we support state sanctioned murder. It is not effective in deterring violent crime and maintaining death row legal processes is much more expensive than regular imprisonment.

This is just your opinion- I vehemently disagree.

And as for expense, we could change the process so that it is not more expensive to just execute two people who very clearly and with zero doubt whatsoever committed cold blooded murder than it is to provide them with free room and board for the rest of their lives.

It is not just my opinion / The vast majority of Western democracies have abandoned the death penalty as it is inhumane and ineffective as a tool to protect society from violent criminals .

Specifically regarding death penalty for criminal offenders who were younger than 18 when crimes committed .. do you really want the US in the same league as totalitarian regimes in this regard?

Since 1990, at least 11 countries (the US, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen) have executed offenders who were under the age of 18 or 21 at the time the crime was committed. In the US, this ended with the Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons in 2005. For those countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such executions are a breach of the Convention.

The US would be on par with dubious peer countries if opting for death sentences of these youth. The Supreme Court ruled wisely in this case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

They shouldn’t be “allowed” to drive again? Honestly, are you even on the same planet as the rest of us?

Newsflash: these people do not care about what you “allow” them to do. They stole some innocent persons car and then used it as a weapon to murder another innocent person. They don’t care what you might allow them to do. They do literally whatever they want, wherever they want, with absolutely no regard for human life or anything else.

Technology makes it far easier for police/
Courts to enforce life long bans on driving and the teens would likely qualify.

Also -
It is very hard to steal cars for reckless joy rides from behind bars. Hopefully if the teens are prosecuted as adults, they will receive life sentences and psychiatric evaluations/ supervision.



Life long suspension of driving licenses

For driving crimes with aggravating factors: If a person is convicted of any of the above driving crimes while certain aggravating factors are present, then it will probably lead to a permanent suspension of their driver’s license. An aggravating factor is a condition that elevates the degree of a particular crime. Thus, the more serious that a driving incident is, the higher the chances are that one will receive a lifetime suspension of their driver’s license as punishment.
Some criminal offenses that could potentially result in a lifetime suspension of one’s driving privileges include when any the following factors are combined with the above crimes:
Driving while using a weapon or discharging a firearm;
Driving while under the influence of illegal drugs, controlled substances, and/or alcohol;
Driving with an invalid license (e.g., if a person’s license is suspended, revoked, or forged);
Driving in a reckless manner with a criminal record that contains the same or similar driving crimes; and
Driving or speeding in order to evade the police or other law enforcement officials.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

They shouldn’t be “allowed” to drive again? Honestly, are you even on the same planet as the rest of us?

Newsflash: these people do not care about what you “allow” them to do. They stole some innocent persons car and then used it as a weapon to murder another innocent person. They don’t care what you might allow them to do. They do literally whatever they want, wherever they want, with absolutely no regard for human life or anything else.

Anonymous wrote:DP. Even if you were, in theory, in favor of the death penalty, how can anyone possibly advocate for it now that we have some idea that mistakes are made and people on death row have been exonerated? You can say, well, in *this* case it’s ok because we know for a fact we have the right people. But where do you draw the line? What about the next heinous case? I’d like to believe that every juror or judge who has ever sentenced someone to death felt completely sure it was the right person, so evidently sometimes people get it wrong.

Here there is zero question about what happened. Wherever you want to draw the line, it’s somewhere else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

Of course it would help. No other punishment is appropriate for this act.

I think it's moral and ethical for societies to police their population and remove individuals who prey on the innocent.

A reasonable jury of citizen peers would recognize that those individuals are not redeemable and would remove them permanently from being able to hurt and kill others.

A large sample size of the DCUM posters on this thread think this fact pattern warrants the death penalty.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

You are not listing a third option- some teens are really future psychopaths and don't care about anyone else. I work at a middle school and you can see that some kids really don't care about the feelings of others and take pleasure in hurting others. There aren't many of them but they exist. Sometimes in a family it is only one kid out of the bunch. They were raised in the same environment and sometimes one is just a really mean kid. The scariest ones are the really smart kids who are really manipulative and violent who enjoy hurting others and making them cry.

DP. Even if you were, in theory, in favor of the death penalty, how can anyone possibly advocate for it now that we have some idea that mistakes are made and people on death row have been exonerated? You can say, well, in *this* case it’s ok because we know for a fact we have the right people. But where do you draw the line? What about the next heinous case? I’d like to believe that every juror or judge who has ever sentenced someone to death felt completely sure it was the right person, so evidently sometimes people get it wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for a fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.



Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

But what is the POINT of all of that? These two are lost effing causes. I’d rather load them into a rocket and fire them into the sun than waste any money/time/resources on their imprisonment and/or mental health care. Seriously, f*** them.

Because we degrade ourselves and become no better than murderers ourselves when we support state sanctioned murder. It is not effective in deterring violent crime and maintaining death row legal processes is much more expensive than regular imprisonment.

This is just your opinion- I vehemently disagree.

And as for expense, we could change the process so that it is not more expensive to just execute two people who very clearly and with zero doubt whatsoever committed cold blooded murder than it is to provide them with free room and board for the rest of their lives.

It is not just my opinion / The vast majority of Western democracies have abandoned the death penalty as it is inhumane and ineffective as a tool to protect society from violent criminals .

Specifically regarding death penalty for criminal offenders who were younger than 18 when crimes committed .. do you really want the US in the same league as totalitarian regimes in this regard?

Since 1990, at least 11 countries (the US, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen) have executed offenders who were under the age of 18 or 21 at the time the crime was committed. In the US, this ended with the Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons in 2005. For those countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, such executions are a breach of the Convention.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

But what is the POINT of all of that? These two are lost effing causes. I’d rather load them into a rocket and fire them into the sun than waste any money/time/resources on their imprisonment and/or mental health care. Seriously, f*** them.

Because we degrade ourselves and become no better than murderers ourselves when we support state sanctioned murder. It is not effective in deterring violent crime and maintaining death row legal processes is much more expensive than regular imprisonment.

This is just your opinion- I vehemently disagree.

And as for expense, we could change the process so that it is not more expensive to just execute two people who very clearly and with zero doubt whatsoever committed cold blooded murder than it is to provide them with free room and board for the rest of their lives.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver is under 18, there are no serious repercussions for their actions. Juvi for a year, tops.

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/las-vegas-teenager-facing-murder-charge-after-intentionally-hitting-bicyclist-with-stolen-car-police-say/

The rest of his life should be ruined. If that cyclist was my family member I'd see to it. While he goes on and lives his life I'd make sure everyone knew/remembered what he did.
If he got married I'd stand outside the church/reception with a huge sign calling him a murderer. If he had kids, I'd find out what school his kids go to and make sure every parent at that school knew what "Billy's dad" did.

I definitely understand the sentiment, but I wonder who it hurts more - the perpetually shamed perpetrator, or the perpetual shamer?

I wonder if any of you have ever worked in the criminal justice system, in particular with youth offenders? Or have any of you ever been school teachers?

There is a vast difference between the human brain at 17 and the human brain at 27, or 37, or 47.

Of course the crime is horrific, and nothing will ever sufficiently comfort the family of the victim.

I wonder if you have ever been a victim of a criminal, in particular with a youth offender? I really don't give a fruit about their brains.

Same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

But what is the POINT of all of that? These two are lost effing causes. I’d rather load them into a rocket and fire them into the sun than waste any money/time/resources on their imprisonment and/or mental health care. Seriously, f*** them.

Because we degrade ourselves and become no better than murderers ourselves when we support state sanctioned murder. It is not effective in deterring violent crime and maintaining death row legal processes is much more expensive than regular imprisonment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:House arrest for life, after some time in prison.

I get by society's standards he will see some incarceration time but let's be honest, this stupid boy spending time with hardened criminals will not help society in the least.

Are you insane? Locking up murderers protects society from violence. Duh. House arrest? So he can just walk outside and escape justice? Crazy.

You're insane if you think he'll be locked up permanently for a crime committed at 17. He might not even be convicted of Murder 1.

+1
He might spend a few months in jail.
Anyone know how long the teen that fatally assaulted the man at the Frederick county fair a few years ago was locked up for?

If I’m remembering correctly they had to take 40 hours of anger management classes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

+1 And I have years of working with teens, too.

That does not mean imposing the death sentence would help.

It indicates the teens are either criminally insane or have severe mental health problems. They may require life long prison sentences, forced medical supervision and never being allowed to drive again but does not mean they should be sentenced to death.

But what is the POINT of all of that? These two are lost effing causes. I’d rather load them into a rocket and fire them into the sun than waste any money/time/resources on their imprisonment and/or mental health care. Seriously, f*** them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No person should be judged and condemned forever on the worst act of their lives when they act was committed when they were very young and thus their frontal lobe not fully developed. We know from neuroscience that the brains of teenagers are fundamentally different than the brains of adults. It is far more reprehensible for an fully functioning normal IQ adult to commit a murder than for a teenager to commit a murder.

Throwing people away at 15, 16, 17 just doesn't make sense. Of course there should be accountability, but teenagers have a far greater capacity for rehabilitation than do adult offenders, and we should give them the opportunity. Very few teenage offenders are psychopaths or sociopaths - and we can assess for those that are. The black and white thinking displayed in many of the comments on this board is chilling. You think you know that your teenager is incapable of heinous acts, but you don't in fact know this. Plenty of the teenagers in the juvenile justice system were raised by good parents who instilled good morals. But the human brain is what it is, and in young humans it is highly volatile, impulsive and lacks capacity to appreciate long term consequences. Add to that intoxicating substances and the recipe far too often leads to disaster.

Here is just one story of the capacity for rehabilitation; there are thousands more out there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/20/us/philadelphia-larry-miller-edward-white/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/21/nike-executive-larry-miller-thankful-family-of-man-he-killed-forgives-him.html

If teen offenders can’t be expected to behave like a human being until they’re 40 and low IQ offenders can’t be expected to behave like an human being at all ever (per your comment) then they should be locked up until 40 or forever, respectively, to keep the rest of society safe after they commit one violent crime.

Your heart is bleeding for the wrong people. Start caring about the innocent victims! That’s who we need to protect.

I *DO* care for victims as well as offenders. Unlike most of the self righteous ninnies posting comments to this thread, I have actually spent decades working in the criminal justice system as a victim advocate, defense attorney, prosecutor and dependency/neglect attorney on child neglect/abuse cases. I have doubtless far more education and training on the issues pertinent to this subject than any of you, most of you have merely got opinions that apparently come out of your anuses. I have seen firsthand both the agony AND capacity for forgiveness exhibited by victims and their families. Life is not black and white, it is a million permutations of grey. Again, you think your children are incapable of violent crime. NO CHILD is incapable of violent crime. No adult is incapable of violent crime.

Grow the F up, seriously. Some of you should be deeply ashamed of your infantile thinking.

Do I believe my child is capable of making a mistake and inadvertently committing a violent crime? Yes.

However, I do firmly believe that my teenager would never steal a car, run down an innocent bicyclist, make a video of the entire event, including the lifeless body lying on the road, and post the footage on social media.

Sometimes things are black and white. There are no “extenuating circumstances” or explanations that can excuse these actions.

I would bet that the parents of the kids involved also believed that their kids would never have done what they did.