Destiny+2B

**__Summary:__**
A 15 year old freshmen John Jason McLaughlin killed two students on September 24, 2003 at a local high school in Minnesota. Seth Bartell and Aaron Rollins are both dead. McLaughlin took his fathers semiautomatic .22-caliber pistol to school. He said he had planned this in advance. He checked for metal detectors and security cameras, in hope that he would get away with it. His intended victim was Seth Bartell, he followed Bartell into the hallway, then shot. He missed so he fired again, this time hitting Aaron Rollins, someone who happened to be in the hallway at the time. He shot again and this time got Bartell directly in the forehead. Bartell was dead instantly, Rollins dies 16 days later in a coma. When brought in for interrogation McLaughlin said that he knew what he did was wrong but he didn’t this he was going to do “very much” harm. He went in with the intent of hurting Bartell, to make him regret the years he had bullied McLaughlin. McLaughlin was charged with first and second degree murder, and possession of dangerous weapons on school property. He was tried as an adult, and was found guilty of all three charges. There were six mental health experts that evaluated McLaughlin’s state of mind. Three diagnosed him with schizophrenia and the other three diagnosed him with “major depression in remission and an "emerging personality disorder."” (www.jaapl.org) In the end they decided that McLaughlin knew right from wrong and that he would not be excused from his crimes. McLaughlin argued three things “The M'Naughten rule violates the due process clause of the Minnesota Constitution as applied to adolescent defendants; the district court abused its discretion by denying him a mid-trial continuance to procure an expert witness; and the district court abused its discretion by imposing consecutive rather than concurrent sentences.” (www.jaapl.org) The McNaughten rule says that no one will not be excused from a crime unless, at the time of the crime, the person did not understand what they were doing or that it was wrong. He says this violates the right to Due Process. The Supreme Court says that the holding a crime against a person when they committed it before the age of 18 is unconstitutional. While the M’Naughten rule rules against him saying that he should be sentenced. However, legal complications said that the court could not recognize this argument. In the end the court ruled against him. He was declared mentally stable enough to know right from wrong, therefore held guilty by the M’Naughten rule. He was given a life sentence in prison for the murder of Seth Bartell and another 144 month sentence for the death of Aaron Rollins. **__I think:__** This ruling seems fairly unreasonable to me. I understand that he needs to be punished but a life sentence seems like an extreme punishment. He is under 18 and is less capable of forming reasonable decision. His psych test proved that he has disabilities in his head, even if he does understand right from wrong. I think that he should have a 10 year sentence and lots of therapy. He didn’t have any difference in a ruling than an adult would have. The outcome would have been the same. In class we have been looking at the way teens are separated from adults and how they are treated differently. This case does not show the difference because he was tried and convicted as an adult.
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Kapoor, R, & Dike, C. (n.d.). //Adolescents and the insanity defense//. Retrieved from http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/content/full/36/1/145