Judge sets bail for 12 yr old at 250K for firing a gun in city limits

[cynatnite]

BOSTON - A juvenile court judge shocked prosecutors by setting bail at $250,000 for a 12-year-old boy charged with firing a gun in the city.

The district attorney's office had asked for only $5,000 bail when the boy was arraigned Tuesday on a juvenile weapons possession charge.

Judge Paul D. Lewis said he'd lost patience with youth violence after 23 years on the juvenile bench.

"These kids don't take responsibility for anything," the judge told The Boston Globe after Tuesday's ruling. "They're fearless. It's out of control. It's beyond out of control."

The boy's lawyer, Mariann Samaha, said he is developmentally disabled and has never before been in trouble with the law. She plans to appeal the bail ruling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050824/ap_on_re_us/boy_with_gun

[Deja Q]

1. Can she prove her widdle boy is "mentally disabled" (aka "retarded")?

Of course, some common sense would render this volcano back into a molehill where it belongs; if the 12 year old was retarded...

OTOH, when I was 12 I was squirted in the eye by a neighbor brat with an oil shooting gun, unprovoked may I add. That fucker should have been hauled off and he wasn't a retard.

[atreides1]

3. So

Why should the kid that shot you with an oil gun, have been hauled off?

Here's a question, did you tell your parents and what did they do about it?

I had fights when I was 12, but I don't recall thinking that my opponents needed to be hauled off to jail.

[wli]

4. I wish some of the bullies that went after me had been jailed

My younger life would have been far less painful. My parents tried for a while by getting photographs of the injuries and filing police reports but were ignored.

[Bluebear]

5. "A retard"?

:crazy:

[atreides1]

2. Yet

At twelve he can't drive, vote, drink, smoke, enlist in the military,
or legally have sex, because he lacks the understanding of the responsibilities that go with those actions, at least under the current law.

But yet he's expected to take resposibility for firing a gun, add to that the fact that he's developmentally disabled.

[REP]

6. Fine The Parents, Too

If the child really is "developementally disabled," the parents should be heavily fined for endangering the public by leaving a gun where their "developmentally disabled" child could get to it. Everyone is very lucky he didn't 'accidentally' manage to injure or kill someone.