'He's 13 - how could he kill my husband?'

[FreeperSlayer]

Sydney Morning Herald
By Lee Glendinning
August 20, 2003

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Amal Youssef sits in her garage with her two little girls playing on their bikes, her priest by her side, grappling with the news that a 13-year-old boy has been charged with murdering her husband.

"He's 13. I cannot understand. How could he have a gun? How could he do this to me, destroy my life, destroy my life?"

Emad Youssef, a 38-year-old chemist, was shot at point-blank range in front of a co-worker as he closed the Canley Heights Pharmacy at 6.30pm on August 1.

Moments earlier, Mr Youssef had called home, saying he was 10 minutes away, and Mrs Youssef could put the dinner on the table. Ninety minutes later, hands trembling, she rang the police.

Yesterday came the news that the boy had been charged with murder.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/19/1061261156564.html

[Journeyman]

1. The woman who raised me was murdered. . .

as she sat in her car at a Los Angeles-area intersection. She was pulled from behind the wheel, robbed of her money, and shot twice through her left eye. Her attackers came away with 38 cents. The triggerman was 14 years old.

To this day, thirty years later, I've believed that when someone picks up a weapon and uses it in anger they forfeit all right to any legal claim of adolescence.

There are those who will disagree, but that's what my heart believes.

[bookman]

2. 14 year olds should know

Murder is wrong. 14 year olds should know it.

I worked with Jr. High students for 30 years. They can be capable of murder, and should suffer the consequences for it.

[ex_jew]

3. Why can't we say that they have not spent their 14 years wisely

and so the remedy is to spend the next 14 years locked up ? There's no need to drag the artificial juvenile/adult distinction into the picture. As a first approximation, resolving that you can only be sentenced to the same number of years as you were old at the time of the crime is much, much fairer than the current alternatives.