According to the Rocky Mountain News’ Bill Johnson, minors should never be charged as adults for their crimes. I’ve heard the argument before, and it is always framed with Johnson’s view that children, without the benefit of adult experience and insight, don’t understand right and wrong in the same way that adults do. Or, as Johnson puts it, “They [children] - and this is the bottom line - even in the most horrendous of incidents really do not truly know any better.”

His argument related directly to a local story about a 15 year old who took his father’s truck without permission, ran over a little girl on a tricycle, and drove off. The boy, Carlos Manzo, is being tried as an adult, which fact has roused Johnson’s defense of the wee ones.

The absolutely last thing I want to do is stick up for this 15-year-old knucklehead. What he allegedly did was horrendous.
Yet, after considering it a bit, I have concluded I must defend him for the lone reason so many people too quickly want to forget, the least among them being the Weld County district attorney:

He is a 15-year-old boy.

A kid.

To be sure, he is a kid who may have killed somebody’s 9-year-old daughter, God rest her.

To be honest, I’m a bit sympathetic with the view. I have issues with minors--even the worst of the offenders--being in the general prison population. For that matter, I don’t believe that a 15 year old’s judgement is fully developed, neither is his outlook on the world truly adult in nature. That doesn’t mean, though, that the kid doesn’t know right from wrong, and doesn’t “truly know better.” That’s balderdash: while the boy may not have had a complete picture of the ultimate consequences, you can be utterly sure that he knew that it was wrong to take the truck, knew that driving recklessly was wrong, knew that leaving the scene of the (I hate to use this term) accident was wrong, and knew that all of these things flowed from his own decisions.

Being young doesn’t absolve a person of complete responsibility for their actions, and the closer that kid is to being an adult, the more adult they must be treated.

I can’t find it in me to judge whether this particular case called for Manzo to be tried as an adult, but I do trust that the DA gave every consideration to the age of the offender before making his decision. I trust that it wasn’t done lightly.

What truly galls me, though, is that Johnson seems to think that no minor should ever be charged as an adult; that every offense should be handled by the juvenile court. How about this case of a minor just one year older than Carlos Manzo?

A teenager was charged on Tuesday with killing and raping his sister and beating his niece with a sledgehammer in a crime the sheriff called one of the most brutal he’s ever seen.

Walter Smith Jr., 16, was charged with the first-degree murder and rape of his 22-year-old sister, Betsy Mary Smith, and aggravated assault against his two year-old niece, Andrea Costello.

Smith was charged after he recounted Monday morning’s events to Spotsylvania detectives, said Sheriff Howard Smith. Based on Walter Smith’s accounts, police said Betsy Smith was beaten with a sledgehammer and stabbed before being raped. When Costello began crying, she was struck in the head with a sledgehammer. Betsy Smith, Costello and a 1-year-old boy were then locked inside the room.

Does Johnson’s thought--"They [children] - and this is the bottom line - even in the most horrendous of incidents really do not truly know any better"--still apply? Do we look at Walter Smith and say, “He’s just a child, he didn’t understand what he was doing, and he shouldn’t face the full, adult consequences of his actions.”

I would hope not. I would hope that Smith won’t be incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility for a few years and then released because that’s what we do with young offenders (and, not knowing Virginia’s laws, I have no idea how they deal with these incidents). Whatever excuses can be drummed up for Smith, the fact is that he is a murderer and a rapist, a vicious criminal regardless of his age. I, like most people, believe in second chances, in redemption, and in the belief that people can (and often do) better themselves--right up to a point.

We all draw a line somewhere that says beyond this point a person can’t be saved. I have a pretty good idea where I’ve drawn that line, but I wonder where Johnson draws his. Are Smith’s crimes adult enough to warrant an adult response? Or can Johnson, in good conscience, say that Smith truly did not know any better?

Update: Kindly linked by Trench.