Canada must treat young killers gently, court says

[w8ng4msrgt]

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian courts must treat juvenile killers more leniently than adults unless the government can show compelling reasons to give them adult sentences, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Friday.

The high court said adolescents have "diminished moral culpability" and should not have to prove that they should be given youth sentences. In each instance, the onus will now be on prosecutors to make the case that adult sentences should be applied.

"Young people are entitled to a presumption of diminished moral culpability," Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for the court's 5-4 majority decision. "Young people...are decidedly but differently accountable."

The case involved a 17-year-old, identified as D.B., who sought to pick a fight with 18-year-old Jonathan Romero outside a mall. Romero did not defend himself, but D.B. knocked him unconscious and Romero died of his injuries.

The 17-year-old was convicted of manslaughter and given a youth sentence of 30 months in a juvenile correctional facility plus six months' supervision.

The prosecution had sought an adult sentence of five years' imprisonment. But the lower court ruled unconstitutional the section of the Youth Criminal Justice Act that said adult sentences should be given for manslaughter and murder unless young offenders show otherwise.

The government appealed and lost, both at the Ontario Court of Appeal and now at the Supreme Court of Canada. The case will not be reopened.

Justice Marshall Rothstein, writing the dissent, disagreed that the section of the Youth Criminal Justice Act was unconstitutional, noting that under it young offenders still had the right to satisfy the court that adult sentences should not apply.

The question of how to treat young offenders has also emerged in the case of Omar Khadr, the only Canadian being held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He is charged with having thrown a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15. A range of critics say he should be treated as a child soldier rather than tried as an adult.

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[SqueakyClean]

"Young people are entitled to a presumption of diminished moral culpability,"

Really?? No, no - really? I remember being 15 or so and keenly aware of the difference between right and wrong. Does anyone really think someone who has "diminished" morals as a teen will be a fine upstanding citizen at 21?

I think that's bullshit.

[Athena]

Really?? No, no - really? I remember being 15 or so and keenly aware of the difference between right and wrong. Does anyone really think someone who has "diminished" morals as a teen will be a fine upstanding citizen at 21?

I think that's bullshit.

If minors don't have diminished morals and decision-making capacity, why is it that they are not afforded all the rights of an adult?

How much sense does it make to claim that they are too helpless and inherently irresponsible to drive a car, drink, vote, choose who they have sex with or consent to legal contracts, but that they are far along enough to understand the consequences of their actions like an adult would?

Science has shown that the underdeveloped, teenage brain is more impulsive and less capable of grasping consequence than the adult brain. Is this not a mitigating circumstance? An adult with diminished capacity is often given less time...

Just something to consider.

That being said, I find it interesting that Canada further differentiates between the standards for juvenile and adult sentencing guidelines while U.S. justice works hard to blur that line and hold younger and younger offenders to adult standards. I wonder why this is?

[Nell]

Everytime I see a younger teenager get sentenced to adult life in prison I feel a little bad, only because I remember how wildly impulsive I was at say, 14. I did things then I would never, ever do now.

[SqueakyClean]

Everytime I see a younger teenager get sentenced to adult life in prison I feel a little bad, only because I remember how wildly impulsive I was at say, 14. I did things then I would never, ever do now.

I did too - but killing? That's just on a whole other level than other things I look back on and cringe over.

[Nell]

I really, really, really don't think so. But I also had unprotected sex, rode with drunk drivers, damn near overdosed reapeatedly, laid on the ground so my brothers could jump their bikes over me, etc...

[Athena]

I did too - but killing? That's just on a whole other level than other things I look back on and cringe over.

Well, it's rarely so simple than the blantantly obvious right vs. wrong. Yep, a kid knows that killing is wrong, generally. But, they're also aware that some circumstances justify killing. Do they have the capacity to understand which these are? Do they understand that their actions will, in fact, lead to death? Does their stereotypically erratic and unstable emotional state lead them to false logic or cause them to act more "passionately" than most?

Killing is wrong. But, how often is it just that simple? In the examples given, it seems the first kid only meant to assault his victim, probably never considering for a moment that his actions could result in death. The second example involves a 15 year old in a Holy War. That couldn't possibly be simple, from my perspective.