Linda7NJ
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- Apr 7, 2005
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He's 13 and involved in a robbery with three adults. They charge him with murder and try him as an adult. To me that is just wrong. Theother laws recognizes that at 13 he isn't capable of making good decisions.
At 13 he is legally unable to drink, get a driver's license, join the military or sign a contract. And at 13 he is legally unable to consent to sex. At 13 he is considered too young to hold a job except under very limited rules. Under the law he is considered a child and a dependent.
Yet when he commits a crime, suddenly he is considered an adult, capable of making legal decisions on his case, capable of making adult decisions. Too me it is just wrong.
Yes I know he committed a horrible crime. A crime that destroyed the life of another person and that harmed a family. But I still consider it wrong that we call him a child most of his life, then suddenly consider him an adult in the legal system.
However I do wonder what happened to the old laws about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I really think that we should be strengthening that law and applying it any time that a juvenile commits a crime along with an adult.
He's 13 and involved in a robbery with three adults. They charge him with murder and try him as an adult. To me that is just wrong. Theother laws recognizes that at 13 he isn't capable of making good decisions.
At 13 he is legally unable to drink, get a driver's license, join the military or sign a contract. And at 13 he is legally unable to consent to sex. At 13 he is considered too young to hold a job except under very limited rules. Under the law he is considered a child and a dependent.
Yet when he commits a crime, suddenly he is considered an adult, capable of making legal decisions on his case, capable of making adult decisions. Too me it is just wrong.
Yes I know he committed a horrible crime. A crime that destroyed the life of another person and that harmed a family. But I still consider it wrong that we call him a child most of his life, then suddenly consider him an adult in the legal system.
However I do wonder what happened to the old laws about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I really think that we should be strengthening that law and applying it any time that a juvenile commits a crime along with an adult.
Flanagan called Cruz a pathological, antisocial miscreant. Washoe County School Police Officer Tracy Moore testified he gave up helping Cruz after the boy told him, Im going to get a gun and shoot you.
Flanagan said police reports showed Cruz threatened juvenile detention staff saying, I know people, Ill get you, and Ill cut your head off.
Hall added that after Cruzs arrest, he was transferred to the juvenile detention center, where he was accused of battering and harassing other juvenile inmates and gang activity. Hall said Cruz wasnt charged with these alleged crimes because of his anticipated lengthy sentence for murder.
Flanagan said Cruz was transferred to the juvenile center after he threatened to kill himself in Washoe County Jail because he wanted his own cell, showing his manipulative side.
When Jose Cruz was in the fifth grade, Washoe County school officials and its police department flagged him as an at-risk youth who showed growing signs of gang and criminal activity, including smoking marijuana.
A school police officer and his juvenile probation officer testified Friday that during the next couple of years they vigilantly tried to get Cruz on the right track, after he was in and out of the juvenile detention center in Reno for crimes ranging from violence, theft and drugs. He had a reputation as a street-smart bully who manipulated people to get his way, they said.
Prosecutor Karl Hall said every social service in the county had been given to Cruz to help him and his mother, a single parent with four children.
<modsnip>. Society dictates that someone that age is not mature enough to comprehend their actions in just about everything else. It is hypocrisy to say "oh yeah, murder is the exception". Either someone that age understands their social responsibilities or they do not, you cannot have it both ways. I know the law says otherwise, but that is the moral hypocrisy in that.
Much like prison, juvenile facilities often warehouse more than they rehab. The kids attend school, because that is the law. Other than that they are in poor housing, poorly supervised, over crowded and sometimes in abusive situations. Often juvie facilities are worse than our prisons both as far as the facility and the quality of what is provided in the facility. Still it beats putting a 13 year old in prison with adult offenders.
If they can't comprehend that murder is permanent and they have murdered someone then where better for them to be than some place where they can't not permanently murder people? All 13 years old don't go around participating in murder.