15 year old kills 9 year old neighbor, charged as adult

[Pimppeter2]

Being charged as an adult doesn't mean you wont get medical treatment. It just means you get a longer punishment. They can't give her the death penalty, but they have to stick her in there for everyone else's safety

Regardless of her mental condition she still commited second degree murder

That's right. But assuming that we're dealing with someone unwell in the mind, don't you think that charging them as an adult is a bit... counterproductive? I mean, part of the idea of accounting for mental imbalance is that they lacked the mental capacities of an adult when they commited their crime. The accused is a Minor, and one probably lacking her full and healthy ability to judge her actions, doesn't it strike you as odd to take the step into adult law and then argue she was... not adult?

Charging her as an adult is skipping right past the ability of her defence to plea insanity and ask for more appropriate proceedings. Also, she is a minor...

It depends...

I mean, I'm going on 16.

If I were to kill someone (intentionally), people would say I was messed in the head because I played violent video games. By defense would also make the argument that I was "just doing it because I wanted to know what it was like".

Even though we both know that would be a bullshit lie

It really depends on the extent that you believe her defense. Personally, I do not believe that it justifies her actions

 

[Dys]

It's wrong. She doesn't have the rights of an adult, she is not a full citizen and it is therefore wrong to treat her the same way. That's the whole point of the 'minor' system, they are too young to be adults, and are protected from the adult world.

its premeditated murder, if she dug a grave then she knew what was going to happen and she should be charged as an adult, at age 15 you know the full consequences of your actions.

I've already contested that in several posts above, so I won't repeat myself, but just say I disagree that planning and comprehension are the same thing, and that how she acted afterwould shows she clearly did not understand the consequences of her actions.

 

[dalek sec]

Try her as an adult, try her as a minor, whatever. Juvie, prison, neither takes child murderers that well I hear. Either way, there's going to be justice.

This so much.

 

[joshuaayt]

You can't not send her to The prison just because she is a child. The odds of her committing such an offence again are quite high, and it's not worth letting someone else die because her body hadn't reached physical maturation before she became evil.

 

[geldonyetich]

Well, she knows what it feels like now. Feels like 20 years.

Reading the article a little deeper, it seems she was being treated for suicidal depression at the time. She probably was on one of those drugs that dope you up so much that you start suffering from sensory deprivation and start looking for a way to feel something. So desperate was she for a bit of sensation, it seems she went straight for first degree murder. Even looking at her mug shots, she doesn't appear to be particularly phased.

So, the real murderer here? Lazy psychiatrists who apparently chose to over-medicate her rather than see her problems through seriously.

Apparently she dug two graves. The two graves sat for a week before she enacted her plan. If arbitrary digging graves was her cry for help, it would seem to have been ignored - perhaps it's a popular pastime in Missouri? One guess who the second grave was for? I'd say she has little to fear in jail, not when her probable killer is staring back at her every time she looks in a mirror.

 

[Booze Zombie]

The fact that she prepared it for a full week, like a fully-capable adult really leaves little doubt, doesn't it?

It's wrong. She doesn't have the rights of an adult, she is not a full citizen and it is therefore wrong to treat her the same way. That's the whole point of the 'minor' system, they are too young to be adults, and are protected from the adult world.

Yes, we should protect the littler murderer from the world, not the other way around.
Seriously man, children are just people, most of them aren't stupid, the ignorance thing is just something anyone with half a brain could play to protect themselves.

 

[the_dancy_vagrant]

Seeing as this is America will she be given life when trialed as an adult or are we talking death sentance here? Obviously just as speculation on an ignorant filthy forigners part but could they put a minor to death?

It's a possibility that she'll get life in prison but she won't be given the death penalty. Missouri does have it as an option but I doubt that the prosecution would even think about it. Likely case is that she'll be sent to a juvenile center or low security prison until she's 18 and then she'll probably be freed.

 

[dalek sec]

Not necessarily true for all we know she may actually be sociopathic I hope thats the case anyway because I find it hard to comprehend how a 15 year old girl could bypass that intrinsic moral wall most of us have to do something so vile, but people are all shades of fucked up.

*Sighs* Isn't there anything we can do to just lock up sociopals(sp) so they can't hurt the rest of us?

 

[chinese_democracy]

"Valentine warned that Bustamante would either kill herself or be assaulted and killed by others if she were placed in an adult jail cell or prison."

I agree with this statement. I don't know if Bustamante deserves to die or not, but she certainly will if she is tried as an adult.

 

[QuantumT]

I do not think that children can be tried as adults because the law does not grant them the same rights as an adult until a certain age.

Like I said before, the children aren't granted all those rights because they have possible consequences that aren't obvious. That isn't the case here. She clearly planned to do this, it wasn't some unforeseeable consequence of her actions, it was the goal. She decided "I'm going to kill a little girl," and as a consequence of her acting on that decision, the little girl died.

 

[Ultrajoe]

It really depends on the extent that you believe her defense. Personally, I do not believe that it justifies her actions

Nothing can justify them, the question is if we can explain them and if that explanation calls for a different judicial proceedings and rehabilitation than she would recieve should things progress as they are now.

i hope she enjoys prison, her cellmate certainly will

And this is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Contun]

Stupid kids are throwing their lives away for no reason....

You don't go around killing people, especially just to "see what it feels like..."

 

[gRiM_rEaPeRsco]

It really depends on the extent that you believe her defense. Personally, I do not believe that it justifies her actions

Nothing can justify them, the question is if we can explain them and if that explanation calls for a different judicial proceedings and rehabilitation than she would recieve should things progress as they are now.

i hope she enjoys prison, her cellmate certainly will

And this is why we can't have nice things.

lol sorry i didn't relise this was out of line

 

[A Weary Exile]

If a bomb is about to go off in the middle of a clearing and you have time to get clear, you don't run up and try to diffuse it because its a waste of ammo.

I was agreeing with you right up until this metaphor, it doesn't seem to fit what you were saying. 0_o

 

[Low Key]

As far as I can tell it doesn't matter how she is tried, because if all things are fair and reasonable, she will be put in an asylum not a jail. That is a psychopath, somebody who is criminally insane.

Reporter: Hi Dr MilkyFresh. How did you determine she wasn't a sociopath?
Dr: Through pure internet magic.
Reporter: Thanks.

Hi stinkychops. Because she killed somebody to know what it feels like. It's not a difficult conclusion to make.

But the whole point is whether or not she knew it was wrong. At 15, she had better have known murder is wrong or we are in a lot of trouble.

 

[zehydra]

Honestly, I personally think many people reach the mental capacity of an adult in their teens. (under 18 I mean).