Charging a 14-year-old as an adult

I am seventeen years old, gay, and male. I attend public high school in northern Virginia; while my region is pretty liberal, anti-gay sentiment does exist.

The recent death of Lawrence King, a fifteen-year-old whose classmate shot him to death on the campus of their California junior high school, reveals that anti-gay sentiment exists in both liberal and conservative regions all over this nation.

Lawrence King's murder tears me apart. One of my first thoughts was, "I want the murderer to suffer."

Yet this morning, as I read an email from Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) founder Kevin Jennings, thoughts of vengeance were far from my mind. And now I feel sadness; not only for my brother, my tribesman, my damned near martyr Lawrence King, but also for his killer, whose name is not being revealed because of his age.

That bolded statement is the key. Because he is fourteen years old, the suspect's name is not being revealed. Yet, according to District Attorney Gregory Totten, "In all probability he [the suspect] will be charged in adult court."

It is grotesque that a fourteen-year-old is too young to be identified as a murder suspect, but is old enough to face prosecution as an adult, Says Totten, "The case is going to be reviewed as a murder involving the use of a firearm, and that carries a potential sentence of 50 years to life."

The fourteen-year-old, at least, cannot face the death penalty. The Supreme Court, in its 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, ruled that it was unconstitutional to execute minors -- but only by 5-4. That's one Republican nominee away from being overturned.

Three eight- and nine-year-old boys were charged with rape and kidnapping earlier this year. They are being tried in a juvenile court, but for their conduct to be called "rape" and "kidnapping" is ridiculous.

On the one hand, the term "kid" (which I deplore, and will be addressing in a near-future diary) is applied to six- and sixteen-year-olds alike. The Paradox of Punishment summarizes this disconnect well:

We do not allow you to drive a car, marry, enter the armed forces, purchase cigarettes or decide whether or not you can skip going to school. In legal parlance until you reach your age of majority you are "an infant." Most of the time your parents exercise both control and responsibility for your behavior. When you go to school, the state has designated the school authorities to act for your parents (in loco parentis) for the six to seven hours that you are present. If you fail to obey your parents, the courts can declare that you are a "Person in Need of Supervision."(PINS-Petition) Yet, despite all of these limitations there are certain jurisdictions that will hold you criminally liable as an adult if you commit felonious homicide.

And so I hope that the suspect implicated in the murder of Lawrence King is ultimately charged as a juvenile. Because while I think that our society artificially extends childhood, it is nonsensical to say that on the one hand a fourteen-year-old is not responsible enough to drive, vote, drink or smoke, but that on the other he is responsible enough to be sentenced to fifty years in prison.