Forest+Fugate+4A

Forest Fugate 4A November 10, 2009 World Lit
 * __Judge OKs adult trial for teen suspect__**

Brandon McInerneywas charged with first-degree murder and hate crime for shooting a fellow classmate February 12 Larry King during English class at E.O. Green School in Oxnard. Larry King was known to sometimes wear makeup and told people he was gay. The defendant and the prosecuting lawyer’s argued for thirty minutes about whether he should be tried as an adult or not before the judge made his ruling of having him tried in an adult court. The defendant lawyer William Quest felt disappointed that the judge was so swift in his ruling of an adult trial. “I just wished he would have spent a little more time thinking about it,” said Quest. (Hernandez, 2008) The teen was quiet for the trial, mostly looking directly at the judge. The prosecutor Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox felt that the judge followed the law, as it had been determined that a juvenile tried as an adult in a murder case was not unconstitutional, and that he was relieved with the outcome of the case. I think that the ruling was fair in that it was right for them to try him as an adult because he killed someone out of hate and anger in front of people. The trial might have been unjust if the prosecutor had been able to work the angle of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ trying him as an adult seeing as he was 14 years old. But because it was constitutional, there’s nothing to say that the conviction was not fair. I think that the only thing that would have changed if he was an adult is that the judge would not have had to decide if the were going to have the trial in a juvenile or an adult court. I wouldn’t change anything about the case.



Source:

Hernandez, R. (2008, July 25). //Judge oks adult trial for teen suspect//. Retrieved from []