Should more juveniles be charged as adults?

A Minnesota House committee approved "Emily's Law" this afternoon (HF699). Filed by Rep. Bud Nornes and Rep. Torrey Westrom, it's nicknamed after 2-year-old Emily Johnson of Fergus Falls, who died a day after she was sexually assaulted and then thrown against a wall by the 13-year-old son of the daycare provider.

Currently in Minnesota, persons as young as 14 can be charged as adults.

"Why is our daughter laying in the ground and this person is in a group home?" asked Lynn Johnson at the House Public Safety and Civil Justice Committee hearing this afternoon, shortly before the committee approved the bill on a 12-to-6 vote. She said the young man charged with manslaughter in the case, was just 19 days from his 14th birthday.

"In Kansas and Vermont, it's 10. In Missouri and Colorado, it's 12," said her husband, Travis, who rattled off a list of states with ages for being tried as an adult younger than Minnesota's requirement.

He disputed opponents of the bill, who said 13 year olds may not know the difference between right and wrong. "Why must the brain be fully developed before one is held accountable for his actions?" Travis Johnson said.

Doug Johnson, the Washington County Attorney, testified against the bill, saying if children were tried as adults, they could be released sooner than if they entered the juvenile justice system. He said the boy who assaulted the Johnson's toddler, "would be out of the system before he was 18" had he been tried as an adult.

"If you send a kid to prison as an adult, you're going to get nothing when he comes out other than a future criminal," he said.

Another opponent said juveniles in prison as adults are eight times more likely to be sexually assaulted as adults and are more likely to commit suicide.

A psychologist, Sue Foss, testified that until age 15, adolescents are "not able to pick up cues" that adults are, saying an adolescent is more likely to consider a crying child to be deliberately trying to annoy. "Thirteen year olds don't have the capacity of adults or modify their behavior to avoid future negative consequences," she said, adding that that doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions.

According to state public defender John Stuart, there are no 14 or 15 year olds currently in state prison.

Rep. Debra Hilstrom,DFL-Brooklyn Center, who served on a sexual offender task force, said "the goal for me at the end of the incarceration period is to make sure there isn't one more victim. Less than 25 percent of the people who are incarcerated as an adult get sex offender treatment even if they're ordered to by the court."

Hilstrom said she didn't get the information she needed to make sure that "these parents get what they're asking for."

Children's brains are not fully developed until they are in their mid-20s, especially the part of the brain where mental activities like making decisions reside. (Which is why teenagers should not smoke, drink, or have unprotected sex: they have no idea what they're doing.)
Children, especially, are redeemable and should be given every chance (and help) to grow up and change their ways. Emotions and grief should not trump reality and real justice.

The bizarre quote from the victim's father (about why the brain must be fully developed to hold a child responsible for their actions) highlights a common problem in crime reporting. The parents of a homicide victim do not suddenly become experts on criminal behavior. They are distraught and they are angry and they are prone to saying irrational things. They should be comforted and allowed to mourn, but they are not in a position to make sound policy. Angry people rarely are.

The same is true of the families of accused criminals. The parents of a killer will always insist on their child's innocence. There is no news in quoting people in shock and mourning. The decent thing would be to leave them alone unless there is a compelling reason to quote them.

We have a juvenile justice system because children are not little adults. Thirteen year olds (nor fourteen year olds for that matter) do not think like rational adults. The severity of the crime does not change that. It is also coming to light that as many as half of all violent children suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome which impedes the brain's ability to feel empathy.

The solution is not to imprison child offenders nor is it to ignore their crimes and hope it doesn't happen again. Unfortunately, the real solution is complicated and expensive and doesn't make good sound bites.

Juvenile justice requires the adults to make the hard and unsatisfying decisions. Group home treatment for Emily's killer may seems like no justice, but sending a child to Stillwater for 40 years is no justice either.

Very well said, Eryc.

We don't ask victims of car accidents to redesign cars. Why? The desire to prevent their own pain would push them toward designing tanks that encase the driver in foam.

We can get testimony from victims of violent crime and their loved ones, but there is an all-too-human tendency for leaders to show sympathy through legislation.

I'm sure there are cases where this approach works, but I would guess, like Eryc said, that most of this testimony is not about the merits of a potential law, but rather about mourning and grief.

Unfortunately, it looks callous to be thoughtful and logical when a parent is crying about their murdered child. I don't envy the legislators' role in that scenario, but I do expect them to be able to formulate rational explanations for laws beyond placating a bereft citizen.

I do not know what it is like being 13 and a boy in puberty, perhaps, but I am sure there is more behind this story than "a 13 year old sexually assulted a 2 year old little girl". I am not making excuses for the boy but trying to understand what happened. Who knows what was going on with him and his family life and upbringing. I am sure the child psychologist is/was looking into it. This child needs healing and direction and some consequences but not detention in a state facility with adult criminals who were mentally fully developed when they commited their crimes.

The boy is in a group home and would be unaffected by this legislation. He's already been sentenced.

Trying kids as adults will do nothing to prevent future crime by juveniles. The problem isn't that kids aren't treated like adults, the problem is that these kids behave inappropriately in the first place. That is the problem that needs to be solved, rather than increasing the punishment for undesireable actions. I can't imagine that the 13yr old in question considered potential punishments for his actions before assaulting the toddler. If changing the law doesn't change the frequency or likelihood of such criminal behavior, what's the point?

i think that this young boy is responsible for his actions because he may not know that consequenses of his actions but he knows what he does is wrong at this age!!!!!

Society seems to struggle with age limit in a sporadic, useless manner. So, let's see:

14 - old enough to be considered capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and then going to jail

16 - old enough to be considered capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and then having sex

18 - old enough to be considered capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and then doing just about anything

21 - old enough to be considered capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and then consuming alcohol.

How old is "old enough"? How can anyone possibly imagine a 14 year old is really capable of understanding what he's doing, and the real consequences of his actions .... but turn around and tell a 19 year old Army soldier that she can't drink a beer because she don't understand what she's doing??

We think a 15 year old is too *young* to realize the consequences of consentual sex, but *is* old enough to realizing the consequences of sexually assaulting someone? Either they get it or they don't. Society can't have it both ways.