This thread disturbs and disgusts me. You're saying that capital punishment should be carried out on a person who was eleven when he committed the crime?

Regimes such as Iran get rightly absolutely torn to shreds in the press when they execute minors, I'd hoped that people in the west would be more progressive.

He won't be executed, he legally cannot be even if tried as an adult. Thank god you lot aren't making the laws.

To be fair, a world would be a much better place if most of the posters in this threaed did. Democracy or not when people commit atrocities such as that they should lose any human rights, because shooting a late pregnant step mother in the head with a shotgun or molesting a child that is considerably younger than you are, you cross into the kingdom of animals and nothing more than a savage, instead he'll effectively get away with this when he's an adult and even might get a new identity. Where is the fairness or justice to his victim/s?

We would be savages if we could not recognize diminished responsibility. Minors and the intellectually handicapped aren't executed for good reason, they cannot be held entirely responsible for their actions.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be sent to prison. But to execute him would be disgusting in my opinion, a matter of vengeance rather than of justice.

Indeed I'm against capital punishment in general, but even more so against the capital punishment of a minor - especially one so young as this.

But honestly, do you want to be the person that defends this minor and he commits similar atrocities later in his life? I personally wouldn't. You don't support capital punishment, but there are instances where it is needed in order to show that actions such as that cannot be remedied by sitting in a cell for several years. In most cases prison makes it worse than anything, admittedly in some cases capital punishment can be a bit extreme when a wrong person is executed there is no way to remedy that mistake, but when evidence points directly at this "minor", whom I'd much rather call a little monster. If at 11 he took life of his step mother and her unborn child what will he do later on? Start a massacre in a mall? Shoot up his school mates and cause more death? There are people that do deserve to be put down like rabid animals, whether you agree to it or not is your opinion, but when there is a chance that he'd become even more mentally unstable later on in his life and bring more havoc, I'd personally rather not take it.

1) I want to be the person who stands against the execution of a minor for the sake of vengeance. Justice is not killing for vengeance people with diminished responsibility.

2) There is little to no proof that capital punishment works any better as a deterent than prison.

3) He is a minor, it's a legal term. You're trying to take it away from the legal and into the emotional with 'little monster'. A little monster he may be, but the justice system can't see it that way.

4) His release, as I believe should be the case with all murderers, should be dependent on a psychological report. If he's a psychopath who is a significant risk to the society then he shouldn't be released. But you can't accurately predict how a 40 year old will be based on what he did as an eleven year old.

5) It doesn't matter whether you'd 'take the risk'. It's the entire 'For the greater good' concept all over again. I hate utilitarianism, it has no humanity.

1) Minor or not, he was old enough to know the consequences of his actions as he went as far as to get rid of the shotgun gauge, 11 may be a little young for execution but the crime which he has committed is one of the most severe, especially taking into account that he had effectively killed a relative, as she was his step mother.

2) There is no proof, but it saves having to spend such large amount of taxpayers money on what will likely be a lost cause going by the way the crime has been committed. If there was a chance that he was not innocent in this case I'd agree, but the evidence is all lined up on him and he also likely confessed to it by now too.

3) I am not trying to do, I am just saying that whichever type of person reviews his crime will likely think of him as a sick little bastard as it is. It is after all down to people that the court cases are settled not by some random chance machine that weighs in the crime vs the evidence.

4) I agree on that point, not quite as severe as a capital punishment but a reasonable solution to the problem, however if he is tried as a child he will get out at 21, a 10 year sentence for double homicide, psychological trauma for the family, and hell knows how much damage. 

5) I tell you what has no humanity, a child that has taken the shotgun as soon as his father left and executed a mother with almost fully developed child, leaving the mess for his little sister to find.

Very much this!

Another point that you all might not be aware of (remember this case is local news to me) is that when our county judge declared that he should be tried as an adult, he claimed it was because "He showed no remorse for what he did?"

Now who can tell me what basic principle of criminal justice was violated in that statement, given that this kid is a suspect only? Our county judge screwed up, and state court absolutely will overturn that decision because the judge based it on assumptions that are illegal to make, so its a non-issue

It's justice. At eleven, you are old enough to know that killing is bad. It was a premeditated murder. If, at the age of 11, the kid is planning and executing the shotgun murder of his pregnant stepmother, what would he do as an adult?

I don't think he should be executed. 5 years in juvi then another 25 in a real prison... That would more or less ruin his chances of having a quality life anyways.