Free Essay On Adult Vs. Juvenile Court

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A very complicating and intriguing murder case that crossed my eyes was that of an eleven-year-old boy suspected of the murder of his father’s fiancé. This was one surprising case in the country where the youngest individual is involved, reported in Pennsylvania. The law works a little different from Pennsylvania where there exists no age limit for someone who can be charged as an adult who has committed murder. The child was held in custody in adult court. There were constant struggles by the child’s family to get him trialed under juvenile court as he was only a minor at the time and did not deserve punishment that was above his own age.
It was said that the child used a shotgun that he had been given by his father as a present for hunting. The child had used the same gun to shoot his father’s beloved, who was expecting a baby boy at the time of the homicide. The woman has three other kids as well. The woman was shot in the head that resulted in instantaneous death.
The police pried deep into the case after they found the residue from the gun on the child’s clothes and the clothes that he had worn on the day the murder occurred. The police also considered the eye witness’s statement, a little boy who said he had heard gunshots in the house. Upon this, they researched into the boy’s private life, his habits and temperament. Seemingly he was normal; no odd habits or unusualness in behavior. Also the child was not involved with any gang or group, neither did he indulge in unpleasant company. The reason predicted by the dead woman’s family was that of jealousy; that the boy disliked his father’s fiancé and her children.
The child, however, started maturing in the process of the trial that he was going through in sentence. He started exhibiting signs of maturity which made the police look into the matters of psychological problems in the child. Teenage is an uncertain age, they said, and individuals in this age group can be very unpredictable.
The state of Pennsylvania is one which has an increased crime rate with 23.69% of crimes of varying degrees occurring in the region. Violent crimes are also on the rise; like rape, assault, robbery and the like, with murder on a high rise.
In the boy’s homicidal case, the police primarily took the evidence to the court and presented the boy’s case. The court, on the other hand, did not show leniency and sentenced the boy in prison with adults. The victim’s family resisted the accused boy’s family’s plea to have him trailed via juvenile court. The law of the state, however, did not give much of a choice to the boy and his family, and he had to abide by adult court.
In my opinion, the court’s decision is fair until the law of the State says so. However as the boy was only a minor, there should have been a little leniency shown on the part of the court since the other states involving cases of juveniles do give less harsh punishments and make the trials a lesson, not a burden on the young individual. These children, even if found guilty of the crime, can be reformed and must be given a chance to rehabilitate and unleash the negativity they harbor in them.
The police did their job right, but they should have also considered other children and relying on the evidence of a gunshot by an eight-year-old is not enough really. Above that, there does remain a chance that the child could be framed for someone else’s doing. The police can pry deeper into the case, go about asking neighbors and relatives about the relations between the family members and maybe they find evidence that can be an eye opener. Considering the two sides of the case can always help to provide justice to both, the accused and the dead.

References

Cnn. (2010). Edition/ Crime/Pennsylvania/young murderer/defendant. Retrieved from
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/10/pennsylvania.young.murder.defendant/
Neighborhood Scout. (2015). Pa/Crime. Retrieved from
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/pa/crime/