Study after study has shown kids tried in the adult system and sent to prison come out worse,not better. And the whole time they're in their,about the only education they're getting is from adult inmates who will teach them how to get away with crimes. The adult system is no place for many teens and certainly not for a pre teen.
http://www.wtae.com/news/local/Jord...l=pit_12pm&tmi=pit_12pm_1_10500205182012&ts=HNEW CASTLE, Pa. -
A judge has decided the
disposition -- the juvenile court equivalent of a sentence -- for 14-year-old Jordan Brown.
Jordan Brown is ruled delinquent in the death of his dad's pregnant fiancee, Kenzie Houk, who was shot when Brown was 11.
Brown will be sent to a treatment facility and his progress will be monitored at regular intervals until the state decides he can be released.
The boy could have been ordered to stay in a juvenile detention center until age 21, if Lawrence County Judge John Hodge had so chosen.
[...]
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/05/verdict_overturned_forboy_accu.htmln appeals court on Wednesday overturned the guilty verdict against a 15-year-old western Pennsylvania boy accused of killing his father's pregnant fiancee and her unborn child when the boy was 11.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court said that Jordan Brown's conviction was "plainly contrary to the evidence" and that the case should go back to Lawrence County juvenile court.
The boy's lawyer, Stephen Colafella, said the defense team was "pleased but not shocked" with the decision. Colafella said they always felt that the state had insufficient evidence against Brown and that other people may have been involved in the shooting.
Colafella said he's not sure whether the defense will ask for Brown's release, pending a new trial.
The boy has been in juvenile detention since a judge ruled in April 2012 that Brown was delinquent — the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict — in the 2009 deaths of Kenzie Houk, 26, and her unborn son.
Houk was shot in the back of the head with Brown's .20-gauge youth model shotgun. The shooting occurred after the boy's father left for work. Brown and Houk's two daughters, ages 7 and 4, also were in the house.
http://www.wtae.com/news/local/boy-...l=pit_12pm&tmi=pit_12pm_1_10500107252013&ts=HPITTSBURGH —A once-national story could again make headlines, as a boy accused of murdering his dad's pregnant fiancee at age 11 is expected to receive a new trial.
[....]
http://www.wtae.com/news/pa-supreme...pregnant-womans-murder/24938720#ixzz2vnBdmJMsThe Pennsylvania Supreme Court has been asked to grant a new trial to a teen in the death of his father's pregnant fiancee when he was 11.
[...]
I think this kid as many that commit crimes at an early age has been failed. I remember when this happened and I read that his mom was giving him up after he was born, and dad got custody when he was 18 mo old!! That makes me so sad that he never bonded with his mom. Dad got married right after and was trying to please the new wife. I really pray this kid gets the help he needs.Pa. Supreme Court hears case of boy, 11, charged with pregnant woman's murder
http://www.wtae.com/news/pa-supreme...pregnant-womans-murder/24938720#ixzz2vnBdmJMs
My boys all have guns. The problem isn't the guns it's with what has and hasn't been taught to the children.Who in their right mind would think that is acceptable situation
Boy who killed his father's pregnant fiancee when he was 11 to stop new baby from getting his bedroom wants a new trial
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
- Jordan Brown, now 17, claims he was the victim of a rush judgement
- He was convicted of killing Kenzie Houk, 26, because 'he was jealous that her unborn child was going to be given his room in his father's house'
- Houk was 8 months pregnant, Brown fired bullet into her head as she slept
- He is calling for evidence to be reviewed and to have charges dismissed
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...fiancee-11-tries-new-trial.html#ixzz3TZUXnKpr
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I read about this one on CNN.com this morning. I had just finished telling my husband that young/preteen children rarely kill, and it is even rarer that they use firearms to do so. I had been talking about the 8 year old who recently shot and killed his father and a boarder.
Well, shit. Nonetheless, this type of crime is still very unusual. Although, given where the family lives, I can't imagine that guns would be hard to come by for the boy. When we lived in the country, there was a shotgun by the back door at all times, loaded and ready to fire. The neighbors had been cross breeding wolves and German Shepherds and often turned the crazy ones out 'to die'. They were so goddamned mean, they'd kill anything they saw.
Despite the anti-gun rhetoric that abounds in the US, us country folk have them, teach our children to use them, and keep guns handy. Who the HELL would think their 11 year old would pick one up to kill somebody? If you believe that you should lock your guns up because your child, (who is fully aware of gun safety rules and who would no more 'play' with a gun than he would piss off the front porch), might kill someone with them, then you've got a bigger problem than gun safety.
(Oh, and my kids don't piss off of EITHER porch. They know better!)
I'm terribly sorry for this woman's family and especially for the little girl who had to find her dead mommy. But I know this situation is going to get turned into a fucking Gun Control debate before it's all over. It's not about gun control. This kid would have used an axe if that's all that was available.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-new-...nnsylvania-boy-convicted-of-murder-at-age-11/No new trial for Pa. boy convicted of murder at age 11
NEW CASTLE, Pa. - A Pennsylvania judge says he won't grant a new trial for Jordan Brown, a Pennsylvania boy who was convicted of killing his father's pregnant fiancee when he was just 11 and insists he is innocent.
Brown's defense lawyers have argued for years for the boy's conviction to be thrown out on the grounds that the evidence used to convict him at trial was insufficient.
The defense asked that Brown, now 17, be given a new trial. In a 50-page ruling issued Wednesday, Lawrence County, Pa. Judge John Hodge - the judge who initially found Brown guilty in April 2012 - denied that request.
Brown's lawyers have said they will appeal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...urns-11-year-old-boys-conviction-slaying.htmlPennsylvania's highest court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a man who was 11-years-old at the time he shot dead his father's pregnant fiancée in 2009.
The state Supreme Court's 5-0 ruling clears 20-year-old Jordan Brown of wrongdoing, his lawyers say, in the slaying of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk, who was eight months pregnant when she was found dead in the family's rural western Pennsylvania farmhouse.
It reversed a finding by a juvenile court judge in Lawrence County, upheld by a state appellate court, that Brown was guilty of first-degree murder and homicide of an unborn child. The court said prosecutors had not provided enough evidence to support it.
Justices attacked the evidence as insufficient, saying among other things that trial testimony pointing to a shotgun in Brown's bedroom as the murder weapon 'supported an equally reasonable conclusion' that it wasn't the murder weapon.
Houk was found lying in bed in a pool of blood with a shotgun blast to the back of her head, according to court papers.
Brown, now 20, was tried as a juvenile after his lawyers fought a judge's original decision to try him as an adult.
A lawyer for Brown, Kate Burdick, said Brown - referred to in court papers as J.B. - has maintained his innocence since the murder and has now received 'long overdue justice.'
'While we can't give J.B. his childhood back, we are glad the Supreme Court has cleared his name so that he can move forward with a productive life,' Burdick said.
The state attorney general's office, which was handling the appeal, declined comment.
Burdick would not discuss Brown's whereabouts, only saying that he was not in custody and that he had met all his treatment goals.
In 2016, a judge put Brown on probation and in the custody of an uncle, who lives in Ohio.
Burdick said charging Brown again for the same crime would violate the 'double jeopardy' clause of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits trying someone twice for the same crime.
Brown's probation under juvenile court would have lasted just a few more weeks until he turns 21.