Innocence of a Child

Rosa Lopez

Flint

English 4 A.P. - 1st Pd.

01 May 2006

Innocence of a Child

"...and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." - Francis Bellamy

The pledge of allegiance states justice for all, the United States culture bases its traditional values by law and society. Throughout history, societies have devised assortments of law; it stands as a body of rules and regulations founded by the constitutions and legalizations of our founding fathers to govern society and to control the behavior of its members. In some aspects, this promise of "justice for all" no longer stands for its purpose.

The Babylonian King established the Code of Hammuarbi, which basis its act on equal retaliation based on this vow of justice for all to prevail in the land and to destroy the wicked and the evil. The primary debate of capital punishment initiated in the eighteenth century has and escaladed in to modern times. It plays a great role in today's civilization to punish those who have committed horrific crimes.

The argument of whether or not to keep the death penalty active as a punishment has evolved in to a bigger battle on the assessment of sentencing minors under the age of eighteen to this horrendous accusation.

As a mother and a father, no one wants to see his or her child executed, but as desperate times come so de desperate measures. Nineteen states exists that allow the death penalty for youth offenders, some including but not limited to, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, and most southern states. In 1999, only seven states did not specify a minimum age for which the death penalty should impose. Fourteen states and the federal government required a minimum age of eighteen, four states authorized a minimum age of seventeen, and thirteen states required an age of eligibility between fourteen and sixteen (Rein 42).

The suggestion of capitol punishment as a verdict for a juvenile questions the thought that crosses everyone's mind: Should juvenile offenders try as adults in a criminal court and receive capitol punishment, considered as cruel and unusual?

Two of the various sides of this predicament come in to deliberation with the right to abolish a child for a crime that he or she may not have fully acknowledged, or the errouneous action of not executing a minor because he or she does have full acknowledgement of what he or she did. Both cases begin with the process of intake of trial.

The Juvenile Court System pertains to this part of trial of intake with the fuse of disposition. A judge decides whether the case should try formal or informal (Newton 69). Informal meaning trial by juvenile court with the conclusion of probation, treatment for rehabilitation, and the chance for the adolescent to receive remorse for his or her actions. In a formal trial, it addresses the adolescent's case to a juvenile court with the risk of transferable eligibility to a criminal court depending on the degree of the offense.

The Juvenile Court System waives the juvenile's case by transfers of jurisdiction of the offenders' repetitive history of offenses and degree of the crime. Then a judge overviews the juvenile's record and decides if the overview gives enough evidence to decide eligibility for the juvenile to trial as an adult in a criminal court.

This transfer's consist of three types of waivers, composed of Judicial Waiver, Direct File, and Statutory Exclusion. In Judicial Waiver, the juvenile court bases its decision on the seriousness of the offense, maturity of the offender, and the like hood of the offender's rehabilitation. In Direct File, the prosecutor has the discretion to file charges in either juvenile court or criminal court; and Statutory Exclusion, a category based on a combination of age and degree of the offense (Steinberg).

If the juvenile system decides to waiver, the juvenile into a criminal court and try him or her as an adult, than the opening case of mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstance pass through to defend the juvenile. Mitigating circumstances may lesson responsibility for a crime, while aggravating may add responsibility for a crime (Rein, 25-82).

The Juvenile Justice System opposes these transfers, and uses a different method to consider a punishment worthy for the juvenile offender. The Juvenile System judges an individual with the deliberation of an offender history, his or her maturity, and the level of the offense.

The Justice System offers a variety of treatment for juveniles because of its belief that juveniles can rehabilitate and return to society as a well functional being. The justice system decides this with the assertion that an adolescent differs from adults. Adults differ from adolescents in the part of mental stability. In a Fox News report, Marsha Levick, legal director of the Juvenile Center in Philadelphia, stated that, the court recognizes that juveniles should place in a category distinctly different from mature offenders (Ron). Her proposal of juveniles set in a category different to those of maturity serves as purpose to seek all evidence of juveniles as an individual to determine a verdict based on the individual's characteristics and the degree of the offense.

Capitol punishment comes into consideration with two circumstances: deterrence of capitol crimes and retribution for committing crimes. In the journal of, Physicians for Human Rights, it states that, the juvenile death penalty fails to serve the states purpose of capitol punishment: deterrence and retribution. In view of an adolescents' lesser capacity to moderate impulsive behavior, deterrence is unlikely and "retribution" -based on the false assumption of adult level culpability -is misguided and cruel. The encounters of these two circumstances do not blend with the maturity and culpability of the youth offender.

Therefore, testing the question as to yes, trialing adolescents as adults and sentencing him or her to the option of the death penalty, is cruel and unusual based on factors of maturity and responsibility.

Two ways to determine the development of an adolescent's, mental satiability and perceptive station on the scientific judgment of psychology and the verdict of the court supported by the evidence gathered. In other terms, the penalties of the offense must fit the degree of the criminal's maturity and understanding.

The adolescent mind works differently than that of an adult. Parents know it, courts have stated