On a chilly morning in February, state police found 26-year-old Kenzie Houk in her bed with a bullet though her head. She was eight months pregnant. The search for her killer ended witha great surprise: 11-year-old Jordan Brown, the son of the victim's fiancé, Chris Brown. He is one of the youngest suspects to be charged with homicide. There are two counts of homicide: one covering the fetus. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in May. In Pennsylvania, there is no lower age limit where someone can be charged as an adult with criminal homicide. If convicted, Jordan, now 12, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.The question of age is being raised in the Supreme Court this year where the practice of sentencing young people younger than 14 to life in prison without parole is being challenged. In almost half the states across the country, children can be prosecuted and tried in adult court, according to the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Many of the laws passed were passed during a time when juvenile crime spiked in the 1980s and 1990s. But sentencing experts say a majority of homicide cases involving children as young as Jordan are tried in juvenile courts, where the records remain sealed and sentences are less harsh. Although it is rare to charge someone so young as an adult in the United States, the prosecutor in the case says Pennsylvania law left him with little choice. Most juveniles who enter the Edmund L. Thomas Adolescent Detention Center come and go within a few weeks. But Jordan has spent a birthday and Christmas there. He missed a fifth-grade overnight field trip to Gettysburg and didn't get to play his final year on the junior football league. Attorney, Dennis Elisco, says Jordan is still unable to grasp the magnitude of what is happening to him. He is doing well in counseling and has hopes for the better.
The question here seems to be: whether or not Jordan should be charged as an adult? And whether being sentenced to life in prison without parole is just or unjust? Your thoughts?
Friday, March 5, 2010
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11 comments:
I don't know enough about this case to say whether the boy deserves life in prison. A 12 year old killing someone seems unbelievable. If the kid just killed the woman out of spite, then he probably deserves life in prison. However, if he was coaxed into it by the fiance, then I don't know if the sentence is fair. However, this is a pretty sad case nevertheless. If the boy does have to face the sentence, he will only have lived a small portion of his life as a free person. This is just one of those very tough cases to decide.
-Henry Zhang
To answer the first question, I believe Jordan should be charged as an adult. Yes, psychologically a child of his age has not fully developed his mature Superego or morality stages of Kohlberg which would have told him that morally and socially it is unacceptable to kill another individual. However, by breeching this codes, he will be traumatized because of the events that precede the homicides. Jordan could psychologically grow to learn that his action was very wrong, but either way he does need to be punished to the full reach of the law because a murder is still a murder.
To answer the second question, I believe that Jordan should be granted some amount of parole because he is still a human being and deserves some sort of freedom despite his haneous crime. Jordan should be given an anklet to track his movements so he knows that he is being monitored and should be confined to either house arrest or to a small radius. This would allow Jordan to mature and perhaps rejoin society in some small way.
"Jordan could psychologically grow to learn that his action was very wrong, but either way he does need to be punished to the full reach of the law because a murder is still a murder. "
I don't see a moral justification for this except maybe for social contract theory. However, social contract theory is not in itself a moral foundation, but a derivative moral rule. I am a Utilitarian, and thus I believe happiness to be the goal, and this leads to social contract theory as a means to provide such happiness (we agree to abide by laws in order to receive benefits of laws, if we don't abide by the laws, the benefits will disappear).
However, the social contract is subject to change, and in this case I think it ought to be. Clearly the 12 year old murderer has not developed an adequate sense of moral feeling, and could easily grow up to be a productive, and happy member of society. The cost imprisoning him for life is his happiness, and the happiness of those who could have benefited from him later.
The cost imprisoning him for life is his happiness, and the happiness of those who could have benefited from him later.
Is his happiness worth another's death?
I think Seth's explanation is very correct in every sense. Jordan's superego has not grown to its full extent, but that doesn't change the fact that his murder is WRONG. I think his happiness is a small price to pay for another's life.
Sam,
the danger in your reasoning lies in the hypothetical. "Clearly the 12 year old murderer has not developed an adequate sense of moral feeling, and could easily grow up to be a productive, and happy member of society." While it is plausible that he could grow up to be a functioning member of society I doubt that this would be the case. Whether or not he is guilty the trauma of this event I believe will warp him phsychologically for, as it was mentioned before, he is still developing and an extreme emotional trauma such as a murder of someone close to you is very likely to cause some sort of adverse effect later in life. If he is guilty, I don't believe that someone can overcome violent tendencies this extreme if they manifest themselves this young.
I support the decision for him to be tried as an adult. I do think his sentence should include the possibility of parole, however.
I did not suggest that he should not be imprisoned at all; I simply stated that I disagree with punishment for punishment's sake, which is more or less what Seth said. I am in favor of imprisonment with the possibility of parole, so long as rehabilitation is attempted.
I agree with Yoda. His happiness shouldn't cost someone else their life. But he seems kind of young to know what happiness really is. By giving him this sentence will deprive him of his happiness later in life. By that time, he'll understand what happiness is and where it comes from. But by then it'll probably be too late.
I agree with Joe that the child should be charged as an adult with a possibility of parole.
Just the thought of a mere 12-year old facing the rest of his life in prison just boggles my mind.
"Attorney, Dennis Elisco, says Jordan is still unable to grasp the magnitude of what is happening to him."
Is this his attorney? If it is, he could just be playing a card to keep the charges light. But the idea still stands that if he truly does not understand the severity of what he did and is undergoing counseling, his superego still has the chance to realize what he's done. At that point, it would be a matter of trial as an adult. But if he truly does not understand what he's done, then I don't think life in prison would do him any good.
I also agree with Henry, though, that in terms of the child's motives, there is not enough information.
-Annie Yang
Such long, airy comments on a topic that can be addressed so simply:
He's twelve years old!!!
He knows random killing is wrong. He's not a toddler. If all of you keep underestimating the moral understanding of 12-year olds, then don't you think that there would be more violence between kids of this age because they can't control their own impulses? Think back to when you were 12, did you know that killing was wrong at that age? Yes, all of you do. If pre-teens don't think murder is wrong, then why do more adults murder more often than the kids do?
Even though a 12 year old does not have the maturity to make decisions like an adult, they should definitely have the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong. Shooting an unarmed pregnant women through the head is terrible. I believe he should be tried as an adult because his actions have absolutely nothing to do with his age. His actions are a questions of right and wrong. Unless its a question of mental disease or severe physical abuse (which I don't understand how a pregnant women could even do)I believe he should not he tried as a juvenile.
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