Word: child
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Murder is a shocking crime in the most typical of cases. But when a child kills another child, all sense of morality seems to be distorted, and no reaction is unequivocally justified. At the age of 10 years old, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were each sentenced to eight years in prison for their gruesome murder of two-year-old James Bulger. Now, nine years since his release, Venables is back in custody, and the public demands to know the reason. The questions that surface query the criminal’s right to anonymity as well as appropriate prison sentences...
...convict seems to be a product of natural but legally unreasonable anger. Comparably strong emotions affected the original trial, and the European Court of Human Rights later ruled that the high scrutiny and “incomprehensible and intimidating” adult court structure for a child of 11 meant that the trial was not a fair...
...distress that surrounds a crime committed by a supposedly innocent child can create pressure for an unusually harsh sentence. However, such emotion, triggered for example by video evidence of Venables sobbing inconsolably for hours on end, can also create sympathy for excessive lenience. Despite such strong and opposing beliefs founded upon Venables’s and Thompson’s young ages, the legal age for criminal responsibility in England is 10 years old, and psychiatrists ruled that both the children could distinguish between right and wrong. In spite of general cries for vengeance and dismay over the seemingly lenient...
...this end, the extreme emotions that surround child criminals should not be allowed to impact legal proceedings further. The vengeful desires to know Venables’s crime and identity are unjustified; whether better or worse, the post-adolescent Venables is not the same 10-year-old who was tried 17 years ago. We may have had a right to know Venables’s crime then, but the public no longer has the right to know the details of the rest of his life. Venables’s identity is veiled in order to protect his life, and there...
...jury learns of his true identity, it seems unlikely that an impartial trial will prevail. According to legal justice, Venables’s previous murder should be taken into account upon new offences but not his shocking age at the time it was committed. The realistic truth is that child criminals shake the bedrocks of society, and typical legal lines don’t necessarily adhere...