29 replies to this topic

[Bash]

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?

[OpaQue]

THATS INSANE!

Firstly the Court should have understood that the child was a drug addict. Secondly, The parents are responsible for the child taking such a wrong path.

Thirdly, I dont think any law has a right to take away ones freedom and imprison a person especially when his commited crime was un-intentional. ( In this case, it was the drug that killed his Grand parents ).

A small kid is unlikely to kill anyone! Unless there is a very strong emotional feeling that provogates him to do so.

[lordofthecynics]

OpaQue, on Feb 27 2005, 08:30 AM, said:

THATS INSANE!

Firstly the Court should have understood that the child was a drug addict. Secondly, The parents are responsible for the child taking such a wrong path.

Thirdly, I dont think any law has a right to take away ones freedom and imprison a person especially when his commited crime was un-intentional. ( In this case, it was the drug that killed his Grand parents ).

A small kid is unlikely to kill anyone! Unless there is a very strong emotional feeling that provogates him to do so.

Psychiatric drugs, like any other prescribed drug, can make any person dangerous in any situation. Though the FDA requires harsh, extensive testing (and some products never make it through), there is always the risk of unknown side effects. Sometimes these side effects can include black outs, loss of memory, fits of rage, etc, somewhat akin to schizophrenia, or worse. In this case, the boy might have suffered side affects from his "medications" which affected his behaviour in a very bad way.

I think the court should take that into consideration, and perhaps call in his doctor as a witness.

[Señor Maniac]

Yeah alot of these anti-depresents do not do anything but make you worse. You are paying for something that does not even help you most of the time. What I think that the kid should do is to appeal this case to a higher court. If that is the case I think that he could possibly win it. To bad though that this person could not make to the US supreme court becasue I do no think that this has to do with the constitution directly.

[Becca]

You shouldn't ALWAYS blame the parents It isn't always their fault... Oh everytime a child commits a crime.. HEY lets blame the parents for their upbringing of this horrid kid.. NO!

The kid should be put in some kind of prison but where you could get help.. He would probably end up killing one of his jail mates and get sentanced longer.

Can they not test if he was influenced by the drug these days? Or is that "too" advanced for us?
Juvenile camps are good to.

[ashiezai]

i think first of all we need to know when the kid is a drug addict or he is under treatment .. but that is unlikely ... but how could a kid buy antidepression ? online ? do he have a credit card on that purchase ? if so then his parents should take some responsibility .. but murdering is a serious crime .. and i believe that it wasnt solely becaue of drug effect and unintentional .. but 18 years is too long for a kid ..

[lordofthecynics]

ashiezai, on Feb 28 2005, 07:09 AM, said:

i think first of all we need to know when the kid is a drug addict or he is under treatment .. but that is unlikely ... but how could a kid buy antidepression ? online ? do he have a credit card on that purchase ? if so then his parents should take some responsibility .. but murdering is a serious crime .. and i believe that it wasnt solely becaue of drug effect and unintentional .. but 18 years is too long for a kid ..

The sad thing is, is the parents most likely had complete trust in the doctor and had no idea what effect the prescriptions had on him.

[Señor Maniac]

Becca, on Feb 28 2005, 12:25 PM, said:

You shouldn't ALWAYS blame the parents It isn't always their fault... Oh everytime a child commits a crime.. HEY lets blame the parents for their upbringing of this horrid kid.. NO!

The kid should be put in some kind of prison but where you could get help.. He would probably end up killing one of his jail mates and get sentanced longer.

Can they not test if he was influenced by the drug these days? Or is that "too" advanced for us?
Juvenile camps are good to.

You are right you can not always blame the parents for the actions of the children. This kid is old enough in my opinion to choose between right and wrong. But yes the influence of drugs could have inpared this judgement. so that could go either way.

Also yes the kid should be put in some type of instituion for where he can get some help. But if not he can do something like killing a cell-mate.

And I also agree that they should have done some type of extensive testing to tell if he was impared or not. That is not to advanced for todays technology because we are trying to perfect cloning.

[iGuest]

no way
12 Year Old Murderer Sentenced To 30 Years

He was not allowed to drink, drive, sign contracts, have sex, live where he wants, but he is fully responsible for this act...
I always find american "trialed as adult" to be one of biggest hypocrites of all...

The court just destroyed one life, guy will be 42 years old when he get out... Who knows maybe he will have elementary school finished on his CV

-reply by DeerDance

[jack177]

I think it's all fair.

It doesn't matter if your on drugs, it increases your likelyhood to do stupid things but it is still you that decides to do it.

He killed two lives, he should rot for 30 years. (well actually I think he should rot for two lifetimes, somethings will need to be invented to do this but it should be)

Blaming things on drugs is pure-bull, everyone decides to do what they want.

Drugs willl make you more likely to do what you want but they don't make you a murderer. People who blame their problems on stuff like this are just looking for excuses, they create a feeling of helplessness where they have to do it because they can't help it to make themselves feel better and justified to do so.

Besides, i believe that if you commited a crime ,you have no rights, you decided to screw the rights by breaking the law, your just another animal and to be treated as such.

but this is society's problem, let the lawyers sort it out.

Edited by jack177, 20 April 2008 - 03:24 PM.