What to do with the Arizona 8 year old charged with murdering his father Vincent Romero along with one of Romero’s co-workers, Timothy Romans.  The child(his name is legally protected as a juvenile) appeared in court today charged with both murders. He admitted that he killed his father, Vincent Romero, 29, and Timothy Romans, 39.  Both men were found dead in Romero’s home. Police said that the boy had confessed to shooting the two men with a .22-caliber weapon. No motive was give nor has one been uncovered to date.  There is allegedly evidence that the child, who had been taught to shoot guns by his father, had methodically planned and “thought out” the murders.  A stunned town and law enforcement community is grasping for ways to understand this act with nothing concrete to grasp on to.  Was the boy abused?   Was there evidence of mental instability?  Give us something to hold on to that will make us feel good about ending(metaphorically) the life of a child that plays with Transformers and watches Ninja Turtles.

So what do we do?  What we do is let the justice run its course to determine the child’s fate.  But which justice system?  The adult system that could send the 8 year old to prison for the rest of his very long life or the juvenile justice system which would cap his sentence out when he reaches 18 years old. It comes down to a simple choice.  When discussing this child’s fate do we want to talk about the past or his future.  If we try him as an adult we are only concerned with the past. We are only concerned with the crimes he committed and the punishment to be inflicted.  If we try him as a juvenile we are concerned about whether he has a future even the face of the futures he took away from his father  and the other victim.

I could say that this would make a great Law and Order espisode but this scenario has already been played out in several different episodes of my favorite television show.  Hard nosed Manhattan District Attorney Jack McCoy would demand the child be tried as an adult and spend the rest of his very long life in Attica prison general population where he would no doubt come out with a “lifetime” criminal label and the in-house training of a true societal predator. Released on society with all the prison skills and true brutal intentions he did not possess when he went in.   Is that what we want for this child?  Is that what he deserves for the  two  murders if convicted as an adult?  Not a decision I envy for the real life District Attorney.  The local police department wants this child charged and tried as an adult.  While I do not agree, I certainly understand the knee-jerk emotional reaction of those at the heart of the investigation. Those who witnessed first hand the brutality and collateral damage of the crime.  With each grieving family contact, crime scene photo, blood stain and fact learned about what a good people the victims were, the age of the “perp” fades into the bright red  of simple payback.

No one would disagree that if this kid is tried as an adult and  convicted his life is over.  We might as well just lethal injection him up right now because by doing so we will be saving on two different levels.  We will save the state millions of dollars to house a life whose potential to contribute to society will have been snuffed out by the correctional system.  We will have saved countless future victims of the this child’s future criminal life because make no mistake , that is the only life that will be left of him when ever he is finally paroled.  That is not to say that his life is not over regardless of under which system he is tried.  10 years in the Arizona juvenile system may not offer any more hope for a non-violent future.  How do you impose the criminal consequences of an act on a child who does not even understand crime or consequences?

You know where I stand.  Try the kid as a juvenile. If found responsbile(the equvialent of an adult guilty) use the maxium time allowed to figure out what went wrong with this child and whether it can be fixed in the 10 or so years he will be incarcerted. What more can you do without completley throwing this childs life away?  I am not diminsihing the lives taken and the necessity that there be accountability.  I just see no benefit to anyone in adding this child to the scrap heap of societal revenge when there is so much more at stake including every other person this child comes into contact with in his lifetime.  If Vicent Romero or Timothy Romans could speak from the grave about this child’s fate, I wonder what they would say…