Anna+Comito+1A

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Christopher Pittman

**__Background Information: __**
This case involves a teenage defendant by the name of Christopher Pittman who was twelve years old when the crime was committed. Christopher Pittman had a difficult time at home and ran away from home before threatening to commit suicide. After this, Pittman was sent to a Floridian psychiatric center for nearly a week before his grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman, brought him to their home in Chester, South Carolina. During his stay in Chester, Pittman began taking Zoloft, an antidepressant. This widely used antidepressant was ordered to be given a black box warning by the Food and Drug Administration to inform consumers of its side effect of increasing suicidal actions in children. Soon after the start of his Zoloft usage, Pittman’s dose was doubled. Two days after this dosage change, Pittman committed his crime that would land him in prison for a large part of his life. It occurred after Pittman got into a fight with another student on a school bus and it was brought up that perhaps Pittman should be sent back to Florida. That night, the night of November 28, 2001, Pittman shot his sleeping grandparents, set their home on fire, and then fled the scene in their car. Christopher Pittman was charged with two cases of murder and was tried as an adult in court. 

__**Defendant's Story: **__
The defendant, Christopher Pittman, plead not guilty. Although Pittman and his attorneys accepted that Christopher had, indeed, killed his grandparents on November 28, 2001, they stated that the crime was not performed by Pittman on purpose or when he was in his right mind. It was stated that Pittman had committed the crime as a result of his recent prescription for the antidepressant, Zoloft, which had reduced his ability to reason. Dr. Lanette Atkins then went on to testify that Pittman had been hearing voices as a result of the Zoloft telling him to “’kill, kill, do it, do it.’” A psychiatrist fighting in Pittman’s defense, Dr. Richard Kapit, summed up Pittman’s testimony with his statement, “[Pittman] did not have the ability to form criminal intent on that date due to intoxication with Zoloft.’

**Prosecutor’s Story: **
Prosecutors argued that the defendant’s arguments were false. They stated that Pittman’s prescription to Zoloft should not be blamed for Pittman’s actions. Prosecutor John Meadors described Pittman’s claim that Zoloft was to blame as merely a smoke screen and that the focus of the case should be on whether or not Pittman truly knew the difference between right and wrong. Dr. James Ballenger also supported Meadors’ claim stating that Pittman “did it because he was very mad, very angry.” Another psychiatrist, Dr. Pamela Crawford also denied Pittman’s claims that Zoloft had caused him to commit the crime. She points out that the burning of Joy and Joe Pittmans’ home shows “not only that he [Christopher Pittman] knew it was wrong, that he knew it was legally wrong to do this.”

**__Outcome: __**
After much deliberation, the prosecutors won the court case in the end. Christopher Pittman’s argument that the antidepressant Zoloft was responsible for his slaying of his grandparents was denied by the court and Pittman was found guilty. As punishment for his crime, Christopher Pittman was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He will be forty-two years old before he is released from prison. Although this is the outcome that I discovered through my research, Crabtree, who is doing the same court case as me, found a somewhat different outcome.

**__Explication: __**
I feel like this outcome was, overall, fair and just. I definitely think that Christopher Pittman deserved time in jail, but perhaps not as long as thirty years. I feel like the claim that Zoloft influenced Christopher's actions was definitely a major part when deciding his punishment and that this claim should have reduced his jail time somewhat. However, I __definitely__ agree with the court in that Pittman was guilty. I agree with Dr. Pamela Crawford's statement that Pittman's action of burning his grandparents' home down showed that Pittman was, in fact, aware of what he had done and how wrong it was. This action shows that Pittman obviously was not too intoxicated with Zoloft and so he should be held accountable for his crime. Also, I don't think the court's ruling would have been any different if Pittman had been an adult. Although he was only twelve when he committed the crime, it has been stated that Pittman was tried as an adult. This story is a great example of how justice is served for adolescents and shows that adolescents are sometimes not given a smaller punishment than adults.