Criminal sentencing has, or should have certain goals: Punishment, rehabilitation and deterrent value are the only ones that come to mind. Perhaps there are more.

Once convicted some programs promote rehabilitation through education, counseling, job skill training, etc.

Others convicted of heinous crimes are sent to hard-core high security or max security prisons where there is little or no attempt to rehab the inmates, just a warehousing operation. If those folks ever get out they will be at least as bad and probably worse than when they went in. Furthermore they probably received a masters degree in criminal behavior along the way.

Juvenile felons come in all sizes shapes and degrees of culpability and susceptibility to rehabilitation. There should be no one-size-fits-all punishment. Likewise there should be no blanket rule that a juvenile can’t get the death penalty or a LWOPOP sentence.

Some people are incorrigible at 13; a bad seed; a sociopath or just plain insane. There are appropriate sentences for each level, but the options should not be limited. We have to have a system that is flexible.

For those who argue against the death penalty I suggest you spend some time with the family and friends of the victims. Not only has the life and everything that victim had or ever hoped to have been taken from him or her; his or her family and friends will suffer for their lifetime as well. I find that in my heart I don’t have a problem with executing a killer or an aggravated rapist who ruins a young girl or child’s life. My problem lies with the certainty of guilt. In order to carry out a death penalty there can be no possibility that the verdict was flawed. Otherwise, it’s LWOPOP. ‘course, that’s just MHO.

Since neurophysiologically the brain of a 13yo is 10-11 years away from full development, the notion that you can predict "incorrigibility" at 13 simply isn't supported.

if an Iraq veteran with documented TBI were accused of this crime, he could not be convicted. He could be sentenced to a mental hospital but not actually convicted.

So how can a child with a similarly impaired brain?

Your position seems to be that a 13 yr old sociopath might at age 21 be just hunky dory. Possible, but not the way to bet (At least if its your money.)

When you start betting, that's like flipping coins, isn't it? You should not throw away lives on the flip of a coin.

When you sentence someone to life without parole, there is no incentive either for him or the correction system to even try rehab.

How about leaving the question open until the juvenile has grown up? Why not let him serve, say, 12 years, and then do a review: Has he abstained from violent behaviour in prison? Has he shown remorse, expressed compassion to his victims? Isn't that the whole point of parole?

businessanalyst:

Your position seems to be that a 13 yr old sociopath might at age 21 be just hunky dory. Possible, but not the way to bet (At least if its your money.)

No I'm saying that ALL 13yos are largely sociopathic. Their brains are incapable of not being so.

Degs, if you were correct on this point "...Their brains are incapable of not being so." then we would have a lot more felons under the age of 18 or so. While they are subject to lapses in judgement and following their impulses, the vast majority stay out of jail.

Most of us were children not so long ago that we cannot recall the experience. Children, reared in an average household learn right from wrong from home and/or community. They know the difference. If they were incapable of knowing right from wrong or of controlling their impulses our prisons would be full of them. Not the case.

There are kids who exhibit aberrant behavior at a young age. Some, controlled, are able to cope in normal society. Others are just bent the wrong way and can never be let loose on society. Fortunately, these are few, but they are out there.

A 13-16 year old who rapes a little girl, kills one of more people for fun or gain, at a minimum should be given a life sentence, with possibility of parole at age 25-30 but that should be based on their cumulative record.

Some of these, with prior records, aggravating circumstances, might be candidates for the needle.

Recall if you will that a few generations ago these “children” would be getting ready to marry, have children and earn a living.

Degs, if you were correct on this point "...Their brains are incapable of not being so." then we would have a lot more felons under the age of 18 or so.

Nope. One doesn't follow the other. There are other constraints on behaviour that limit violence. And also parental influence and intervention in the legal system has an impact. I know that as a mid teen I committed acts that now COULD be considered felonies (making explosives, detonating them on school grounds) and pretty much every other teen I know has broken the law atleast at misdemeanor level.

Most of us were children not so long ago that we cannot recall the experience.

You are missing the neurophysiological point. Given how brains and memory works. And given that your brain is dramatically different NEURO-PHYSICALLY. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for you to "recall the experience". This is the fallacy upon which you are building this. Its kind of like trying to remember what it felt like to not understand the english languaged. You cannot - because your brain has changed dramatically in ways that precludes that memory.

Children, reared in an average household learn right from wrong from home and/or community. They know the difference.

Right from Wrong is a very nebulous concept. Is cheating on a test "wrong"? If "knowing right from wrong" is what limits "wrong behaviour" - then clearly cheating on tests at that age isn't wrong...

OR there is something else going on. Where the CEREBRAL description of "right and wrong" is disconnected from the perception of right and wrong.

If they were incapable of knowing right from wrong or of controlling their impulses our prisons would be full of them

Only if all who committ serious offense get caught and/or are prosecuted as adults. NEITHER IS TRUE.

A 13-16 year old who rapes a little girl, kills one of more people for fun or gain, at a minimum should be given a life sentence, with possibility of parole at age 25-30 but that should be based on their cumulative record.

That's a definitional statement. And it isn't based in any sort of FACTUAL underpinnings.

Degs,

A 13-16 year old who rapes a little girl, kills one of more people for fun or gain, at a minimum should be given a life sentence, with possibility of parole at age 25-30 but that should be based on their cumulative record.

That's a definitional statement. And it isn't based in any sort of FACTUAL underpinnings.

I consider that an opinion rather than a definitional statement.

Perhaps I'm delusional but I recall much of my "criminal" behavior as a teen. It was thrills, fun and pleasure and we figured we'd never get caught - and in most cases we didn't. But we didn’t' harm anyone, steal anything worth more than $10 (a case of beer one time), or destroy people's property - other than a mailbox or two. When we were caught we had to make restitution and were punished beyond that. (Replacing a mailbox and buying a new Cherry Tree to replace the sapling we split down the middle with a Cherry Bomb - seemed poetic at the time.)

I don't know your age but building "bombs" was something everyone screwed around with and unless you were destroying property or distrubing the peace (as we often were) it apparently wasn't illegal. The county police would come by admire the hole we created in the corn field and tell us to be careful and not do any more than the next one we had planed - I swear.

The point being we knew what we were doing, when it was wrong and when it was illegal. I still recall many of those times. Why do you contend I "can't" remember those events?

Every kid (male) I went to elementary and junior high school with would be diagnosed as ADD or a juvenile delinquent today. Thank God, back then we were just diagnosed as kids.

Degs,

A 13-16 year old who rapes a little girl, kills one of more people for fun or gain, at a minimum should be given a life sentence, with possibility of parole at age 25-30 but that should be based on their cumulative record.

That's a definitional statement. And it isn't based in any sort of FACTUAL underpinnings.

I consider that an opinion rather than a definitional statement.

That's what an unsupported opinion is. Its a definition. But its meaningless absent reasoned support. No more valid than a 3yo throwing a tanrtrum insisting mom buy Count Chocula.

Perhaps I'm delusional but I recall much of my "criminal" behavior as a teen

Not delusional. But your brain works differently now, so you experience the memories differently. Kind of like taking your home Super 8 movies, transefering them to video and watching them on an HD Monitor. Because the rate at which each frame of the film is rendered has changed, how smoothly or roughly the action flows changes as well. Since the colors on the film have altered over time, how they are rendered on a Plasma Screen changes.

So YOUR MEMORIES are not a good guide. to how you thought about the crimes when you did them.

But we didn’t' harm anyone, steal anything worth more than $10 (a case of beer one time), or destroy people's property - other than a mailbox or two

Stealing from a mailbox, Blowing up a mailbox - are all Felonies that could have put you in prison for as much as 15 years. I seriously doub that when you were doing this "thrill seeking behaviour" that you have ANY conception that you might be 30yo and homosexually raped by the time you got done paying for your crime.

I don't know your age but building "bombs" was something everyone screwed around with and unless you were destroying property or distrubing the peace (as we often were) it apparently wasn't illegal.

its a Federal Offense (I'd argue its 2nd Amendment protected, but that's a different matter). Its part of what Terry Nichols (McVeigh's coconspirator) whent to prison for. All he did was to blow up bombs on his own property. Disturbing no one and harming no one directly

The point being we knew what we were doing, when it was wrong and when it was illegal. I still recall many of those times. Why do you contend I "can't" remember those events?

you clearly STILL don't know how and when it was illegal. Nor did you have any cognition whatsoever on the consequences it might have had. For example. if you blew up a mailbox, I doubt you thought through the consequences of it "hanging fire" and then blowing up when someone came to disarm it and killing them.

That would have put you in prison for life and possibly on death row. Felony Murder. Not because you intended to murder them but because you killed them in the commission of another felony.

YOUR BRAIN WAS NOT CAPABLE of making that sort of connection. The Neurons just weren't wired up that way. If someone explained it to you, you would understand the connections, but your brain was incapable of making those same connections on its own.

Same applies to this kids brain

Every kid (male) I went to elementary and junior high school with would be diagnosed as ADD or a juvenile delinquent today

Depends on the school - but yes. Our schools are screwed up because they don't teach the way students learn best. Instead they label students who don't fit as ADD and Juvie.

Degs,

I looked at the link. Is there a way to see the history of that statute, as in when provisions were added, amended, etc.?

Our blowing up mailboxes involved throwing a Cherry Bomb or Blockbuster into the mailbox and running like heck. If that was a felony at the time or the making bombs out of ballpoint pen shells (small stuff I guess) I am surprised there were no arrests made rather than cautionary advice. I know the police, county and town, were lenient back then on the kids that were not committing "real" crimes like theft, assault, etc. but it is hard to believe that they would be so easy on us "bombers" even if it were in a (harvested) cornfield.

I know you are right about perceptions changing over time but I knew then the right and wrong or theft, assault, etc. Making "bombs", drinking beer and blowing up mailboxes (perhaps two or three time) were not considered in the same league.

The thing that changes is that we get more "conservative" and consider consequences more often before doing things. Of course, now we have more to lose than we thought we did as a teen. Perhaps that is your point.

Hmm. I don't know of a good site for the history of the US Code. I would be interested as well. But I believe it always was a felony (note that in HS I had some drug dealer friends and one of my friends in Univ. was one of the campus dope dealers, and the campus cops, which had full police powers, didn't hassle the dealers they knew unless they were egregious about it).

Given the FALN, the SDS and the Weather Underground and the broughaha about the Black Panthers, I suspect that making explosives was a felony back then as well. But you and I were both white males...

The thing that changes is that we get more "conservative" and consider consequences more often before doing things. Of course, now we have more to lose than we thought we did as a teen. Perhaps that is your point

Its more than that. OUR BRAINS are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT at age 24 than at age 13. And not just in the form of memories. The Orbito Frontal Cortex allows us to associate that 'more to lose' with current actions. Without its development - that begins around age 15-16 and takes 6-8 years to develop - we were simply UNABLE to connect that future "loss" with current actions.

Your knowledge of the "wrong" was driven by multiple factors, including peer pressure, societal pressure, parental pressure and explicit teaching. But think back on a different factor, what controlled your behaviour towards girls. How much of it was sensitivity to her feelings vs. your own fears of rejection? How much was narcisstic vs. connective?

Now compare it to how you interact with women romantically today?

That's not just experience. It is also changes in how your brain works.

"Its more than that. OUR BRAINS are PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT at age 24 than at age 13. And not just in the form of memories. The Orbito Frontal Cortex allows us to associate that 'more to lose' with current actions. Without its development - that begins around age 15-16 and takes 6-8 years to develop - we were simply UNABLE to connect that future "loss" with current actions."

You keep stating this as settled fact. It's actually just junk science that happens to support your point of view.

Hmm how is it "junk science"?

Is it not true that the OFC develops late in adolescence and doesn't complete development until early adulthood? What is the problem with this science?

Is it not true that OFC is the mediator in establishing long term consequential associations and impulse control? What is the problem with this science?

What is the basis for trying children as adults?

Degs,

I've "heard" about the late developing frontal cortex that controls impulse reaction. I don't know if it's settled science or a popular theory at this point. It's certainly clear that teens show less impulse control than most adults - not all, but most.

My youthful indiscretions took place in the late 50's, ending sadly in the every early 60's. Adulthood, fatherhood and responsibility overcame my give-a-crap attitudes. I adapted and moved on. There must be another process that overrides or somehow moderates the lack of impulse control. I'd call it maturity and a sense of responsibility. I saw it take hold of some of my friends earlier than with me and later with others. I don't think the frontal cortex theory is the whole story.

But, that aside, I guess the Supremes will tell us what the state of the law will be. I don't know which way they will go, but I hope they maintain flexibility in the options. Some kids are bad seeds from the beginning - probably mentally ill in some fashion and will always be a danger.