Locking Up 12 Year Olds

A few years ago a 14 year old kid in Florida was sentenced to life in prison for a murder that he committed when he was 12. Does this make any sense?

Proponents for this type of sentencing for juveniles repeat the mantra that “if you do an adult crime, you should receive an adult sentence.” Apparently, these people would also view the situation the same even if the murderer was seven.

People against this form of sentencing, including me, believe that the requisite level of intent which is necessary for a murder conviction is simply lacking in the vast majority of juveniles. One must comprehend one’s act and I don’t believe a 12 year old is capable of that, and surely not a seven year old. Of course, there is that rare ten year old that may have the ability to formulate intent just like an adult would, but should we have an ironclad rule just because one in a thousand might fit it?

This entire debate reminds me of the real crux of the pro-choice, pro-life issue: When is the embryo a human being and afforded protection of the laws? Pro-choice people say that happens at birth or shortly before birth, and pro-life people say it happens at conception or shortly after conception. This debate will never be solved even 3,000 years from now because it revolves around subjective definitions of what is a human being. You can argue birth, and you can also argue conception it seems to me, and the debate cannot be resolved by empirical data alone. It’s the subjective interpretation of that data fraught with spiritual and moral issues that is the genesis of the debate.

Can seven year olds intend their actions? No, you say. What about ten year olds? O.K., what about 12 year olds? 18 year olds? Sure, no problem there. So if we do have a universal rule for cognitive intent we know that the age is somewhere between seven and 18. I pick 16. Why? No special reason other than that I think we should always error in our rules in the light most favorable to juveniles. Should we try as adults the occasional 12 year old who the team of doctors says was capable of intent? I think not. The doctors’ opinion is also subjective and subject to debate. You will find another team of doctors who reach the opposite conclusion. Thus, let’s come up with an age and stick to it regardless of the heinous nature of the crime; which is of course, the real reason why we think we should suddenly deviate from common sense and send a 12 year old to life in prison.

Depression and Homicide

A Texas woman admittedly drowned her five children a few years ago. She was being treated for depression and psychosis. As someone who has fought dark depression for most of my life, though not psychosis, it’s difficult for me to see how depression alone could cause such an atrocity.

Those who are severely depressed and not psychotic typically do not have the energy to wash their hands let alone drown five children. And then call the police? It doesn’t make sense. Depressed people don’t want to get off the couch. Picking up the phone and talking to anyone is exhausting.

No, this woman is or was psychotic. The amazing thing to me is that her husband seemed to have no clue. Even though he knew his wife had severe trouble with postpartum depression this guy kept having kids. If he was not depressed and/or psychotic, you think he would have slowed down the progeny thing for the sake of his wife and his other children. How anyone can be this clueless or insensitive is remarkable. I can only conclude that he is crazier than his wife, because he exhibited no signs of craziness. The profoundly crazy are sneaky; they never give us any clues until it is too late. Think Ted Bundy. Or Scott Peterson.

Killing your own children in a methodical fashion has to be the definition of insanity. Mothers do not eat their young. They protect them from the promiscuous father who may eat them. I am, frankly, and this will be most disturbing to the majority of you, most concerned about this case because it gives depression a bad rap. People will think that severely depressed people are not just weak-minded and of a defective character, but that they are dangerous as well. Let’s lock them up like we did in the 1st half of the 20th century. In truth, depressed people are too lethargic to pick up a gun and too confused to plot mayhem against anyone but them self. This woman may have been suffering from depression, but there were other demons at work here, and it was those demons that were responsible for this ineffable tragedy, not melancholy. Depressed people steel themselves to block out the nothingness, the hopelessness, the bulky weight of life. They don’t kill others. This poor woman was nuts in addition to being depressed.

I know what you’re thinking. What about the depressed ex-boyfriend who kills his ex-girlfriend and their only child, and then turns the gun on himself? That’s not depression folks, that’s anger and revenge and lunacy too. Depressed people hide under the covers, afraid of the light of tomorrow and the pain that it will bring. No, depressed people are not more prone to violence than other people, and they don’t kill other people more than normal people; they only kill themselves to obliterate the incessant shroud of darkness.

Stealing Magazines

What’s wrong with people who read magazines and newspapers at the airport or drug stores without buying them? First of all, they block the other impatient people who are in a hurry from grabbing the stuff that they want and paying for it. Secondly, it’s more than a little sneaky, it’s dishonest. People publish magazines and newspapers at great expense so we will buy them. Standing and reading them is not just cheap it is stealing from the publishers. Let’s get philosophical and employ Kant’s Categorical Imperative to this behavior. Kant said that one should only behave in a fashion that one would wish that everyone would behave the same way in a like circumstance. If everybody did this, nothing would get sold at vending counters and at the minimum one would not be able to buy this stuff at counters but only through subscription.

The publishers over the years have tried to thwart this behavior with plastic over wraps, but I have even seen people remove the wraps right there and start reading.

I’m always tempted to offer these people some money, not to be kind, but to humiliate them in front of others. We lack good humiliation these days. I’ll bet someone would stop doing this if he were so humiliated.

So, come on, knock this off. It’s disgusting and beneath you.

Return Policy for Adopting A Child?

We keep reading about cases where a birth mother chooses to arrange for the adoption of her child upon birth and then one week, one month, or one year after the birth states that she has changed her mind and wants the baby back.

Should the birth mother get the kid back?

This is a tough question with only tough answers. The courts have generally sided with the birth mother as long as the request for the return of the child was made within a reasonable period of time, one week is “O.K.,” three years is normally too long.

Extreme advocates for the birth mother usually state that there should be no time limit, that it basically is “Let the buyer beware.” After all, it’s her baby stupid. It can happen at any time and should be upheld at any time. On the other side, those in favor of the adoptive parents rights state that once a deal is made it is irrevocable whether it is pre-birth or at any time post-birth. This whole mess may become a bit unseemly because in many cases there is actually an exchange of cash from the adoptive parents to the birth mother which flirts dangerously, I think, with treating babies as property. But that’s another column.

The courts always are caught in the conundrum between maintaining the sanctity of the relationship between the birth mother and her child, and doing what’s best for the child regardless of the time that has elapsed. For example, if it’s one week after the request the belief typically is that the baby and the adoptive parents have not bonded and that the primacy of the relationship between mother and child overrides the interest of the adoptive parents. If the request is made five years after the birth, the opposite result usually occurs based on the same reasoning.

All of this is nonsense. I don’t give a damn about the birth mother’s rights or the adoptive parents’ rights. I think the only issue should be who would be better parents. Now, I know that this is subjective. It probably seems unduly harsh to the birth mother advocates. But, parenting and raising a child is more important than who the actual mother of the kid might be. It ought to be done by the best people for the sake of the child.

Look, the kid didn’t ask to be born, and those responsible for its birth need to do the best thing for that child regardless of their own feelings. That is why I admire many women who choose to have their child adopted because they are broke, or addicts, or are 14, or feel that they are simply unfit to raise their biological child at that time in their lives.

Often times it would seem to me that it takes great courage and selflessness. See, if you look at it this way, time is irrelevant, whether it’s one day or one year. If a third party, the courts, believe that after 15 years the child should be returned to the birth mother because she wants the child, and the courts believe that it would be in the best interest of the child, the child should go back. This example is pretty extreme, and would probably only be granted once in a thousand times, but it illustrates my point. I don’t care about the feelings of either the mother or the adoptive parents. I care only about the needs and feelings of the baby or child. Once the mother places her baby for adoption, she needs to know that all bets are off from now until eternity. The adoptive parents also need to know that the baby could go at any time, so they better do a good job. In fact, one would think that they would be inclined to do as good job as possible or their baby might be gone. This would make for better adoptive parents, benefiting the baby at all times, which should be the goal and not the “parents” feelings or biological sanctity.