Fate of 12-year-old killer now up to trial judge

[depakid]

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A jury in Detroit this week convicted a 13-year-old boy of a murder that he committed when he was 12.

Demarco Harris was found guilty of felony murder, armed robbery, and felony firearm and curfew violation. An earlier trial in January ended in a hung jury. Harris shot to death Trisha Babcock, 24, last August 1 as she sat in a parked car. The defendant, who was 12 at the time, was attempting to rob Babcock when he shot her in the chest.

"We believe that based upon the facts and evidence in this case that the jury reached the correct result," said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy in a statement. Harris, who is being held in a juvenile detention center, will be sentenced on June 1, the prosecutor's office said.

The judge has three options at the time of sentencing, Maria Miller, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, told CNN. She said Harris can be sentenced as a juvenile, sentenced to prison as an adult, or a combination of the two. Miller would not discuss what choice the prosecutor is recommending for Harris. "We don't speak about that until the day of sentencing," she said.

The victim's father, Steve Babcock, was in the courtroom when the verdict was read. "I broke down and cried like a baby," he said. "Everyone knew he was guilty." "I did everything I could for my daughter and I did the same for her when she was alive. She would have been proud of me. It's not going to bring my daughter back though."

Mr. Babcock talked to CNN about the appropriate punishment for Harris. "A life for a life," he said, "but unfortunately we don't have the death penalty."

More: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/06/fate-of-12-year-old-killer/

[moriah]

1. "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?"

"You can take your revenge but you'll still feel bad...." "Hey Joe, where you going with that dogma in your head? You can prove your point, but your kids will still be dead..."

Never understood "eye for an eye". It's not justice, it's retribution.

[proteus_lives]

2. I don't judge him for his comment.

He lost his daughter to that worthless little scum-bag.

[moriah]

4. And even he acknowledged that life in prison would be the better sentence.

Honestly, I've got a weird view about the death penalty. If the appropriate punishment for crime is to do the same thing to the criminal that they did, then rapists should be raped, people who beat each other up should be being beaten up themselves, etc. The only types of crimes that actually would be served well by that kind of attitude would be financial crimes, because you could actually give the money taken from the criminal back to the victim -- and therefore undo the crime. If the death penalty is less of a revenge and more about a concern that the person will offend again if he breaks out of prison or is released, then I would want to see rapists and child molesters eligible for the same penalty.

Killing the kid won't bring his daughter back. He knows that. He's grieving. Of course he's angry. He said what he would have liked to have happen, but then said what he thought was actually the better sentence -- life in prison.

Unfortunately I'm sure that there will be many people (not on here, but other places) clamoring for those of us in death-penalty states to try to get the death penalty used on people under 18 because of a case like this. I'm already not allowed to serve on a jury in a death penalty case because I do not believe in it.

edit: spelling

[provis99]

7. putting the kid in prison won't bring her back, either.

How about just freeing the kid? Maybe that will bring his dead daughter back?

[moriah]

9. Life in prison protects the interest of society to not have murderers in its midst.

For the concern that they may re-offend.

The death penalty does not deter future murders and does not protect society from the possibly of them re-offending any better than life without parole in a properly secured facility. It is not cheaper for the state to kill them -- more money is spent on death penalty appeals than the cost of keeping someone in prison for 100 years.

The only thing the death penalty accomplishes that life in prison without parole would not is the need for revenge.

[provis99]

10. it doesn't protect prisoners from each other.

There's a lot more crime in prisons than outside of them.

[moriah]

12. Neither do prison colonies...

... but I honestly think that would be a more humane option than outright killing people because we want to protect them from each other, or the alternative of putting every person in prison into a Supermax-type unit so they would be protected from each other (and also isolated from all social contact, which some feel is torture and I tend to agree unless the benefits of keeping them from escaping, murdering other prisoners, or having prisoners murder them outweigh the damage to their psyches).

Maybe in 200 or 500 or 1000 years we'll be able to set up transportation to a planet and send all the people we've decided can never be rehabilitated there, and let them attempt to make their own society. Who knows what they might accomplish?

[depakid]

13. "Maybe...we'll be able to set up transportation"

Who knows what they might accomplish?

Indeed:

[moriah]

14. Well, I didn't really want to use Australia as an example...

... because of how the British went about setting up the penal colonies there -- they made the criminals into slaves and work under those that were "free". It was not pleasant at all and not a condition I'd like to replicate any more than Star Trek's depiction of Klingon prison colonies. But you're right -- they did accomplish a hell of a lot despite the cruel treatment given to them.

My thought was to provide tools and educational materials, and let them do their own thing and create their own society, not be whipped or made to do manual labor by slavedrivers who were put in a position of power over them. What they chose to do would be up to them -- if they didn't want to grow food, they could starve, but that choice and what they made of it would be their own.

[NotThisTime]

26. You don't seem to want him in prison, what would you like to have done with him?

I see no place in putting this kid on city streets any time during his life. If he can hatch this plan and execute it, and her at the age of 12, I can only imagine what he could do at 20, 30 or 40...

[Journeyman]

5. My father-in-law believes "eye for an eye" is not a call for revenge but instead. . .

promotes measured justice: the punishment should fit the crime but not exceed it.

There's nothing in the statement, he says, that dictates justice must involve punishment in measure equal to the crime, but it does prohibit seeking excessive reprisal.

Someone may steal another's possession and thereby forfeit their freedom and even be forced to make restitution. But to cut off a thief's hand is wrong.

YMMV

[moriah]

8. Deuteronomy 19:19-21

"So you shall purge the evil from your midst. The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."

Leviticus 24:19-21

"Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered. One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death."

That's using the NRSV translation, but the King James Version is pretty similar. While yes, I agree it's certainly an improvement from cutting off people's hands if they steal a loaf of bread, but "Show no pity" is pretty clear.

[seabeyond]

18. christ with sermon on the mount. you will hear eye for an eye, but i say to you

turn the other cheek

so i guess it depends how the pro death penalty eye for an eye crowd picks and choses.

[Gwendolyn]

21. Better go back and reread your old testament. Turn the other cheek has nothing to do...

with revoking the DP.

Jesus was exhorting the crowd not to take matters into their own hands, as in vigilante justice, but to let their government mete out justice. So accordingly in the OT, the application for the death penalty still stands as it is.

[seabeyond]

22. your point of reading old testament is irrelevant. though he says follow law, he

dismissed the eye for eye. following govt is not the same as preaching eye for an eye. because we have death penalty in law, has nothing to do with the eye for eye quote in the old testament. so in the religious sense, eye for eye is left on the side of the road.

what govt thru the people chose as law is a whole different story.

on edit... there is also, ... vengeance is mine sayth the lord.

[Gwendolyn]

23. Lol, that's the whole point. He did not go against Dad and dismiss "eye for an eye"

Jesus was perfectly fine with the death penalty as long as the populace did not mete it out. It was for the government to proscribe and punish.

Get it? He was A-OK with the death penalty. Turning the other cheek has NOTHING to do with Jesus wanting to get rid of the DP. So yes, I would say, if you;re going to make big sweeping statements, you should maybe brush up on your OT/NT so you at least know WTH you're talking about.

[seabeyond]

25. i didnt say jesus was against or not against the death penalty. what i said was

eye for eye was thrown out.

that is the argument. the use of eye for eye.

death penalty or not is per law.

nothing to do with eye for eye.

the man in the article was using vengeance. vegeance was left to god. not to man. death penalty implemented does not mean vegeance. it means punishment for action. ntohing to do with eye for eye

there is no contradiction.

[happyslug]

20. but you could buy you way out....

Today's separation of Civil liability and Criminal liability is a recent development, basically post 1700, priori to that period (and in the US till the 1830s when what we now call "District attorneys" were invented) not only did the victim had to pay for his own attorney to bring a civil suit, he had to pay his own attorney to bring a criminal action. The reason for this combination (at that time period) was it was common for people to BUY off criminal sanctions (Thus a lot of Criminals were set to the American Colonies in the 1600s and 1700s BEFORE they were convicted of any charge as part of the plea bargain, the victim received the money from the Captain of the ship who would take the alleged criminal as an indentured servant to the Colonies and sell him or her to recovery the money).

Anyway, the bible was used to justify the above practice in that it gave harsh punishment (as did the common law) but also permitted you to make a deal to avoid that hardship (Two blind people does NOT provide food for the family of the first person made blind, but cash from the criminal does and would be preferred to taking the eye so neither the criminal or the victim could work). The issue often dissolved into how much to pay and that varied depending on the the status, education and overall standing of the victim, thus you can NOT give a set fee (Which may be affected by inflation) but only guidelines and Leviticus is such a guideline, but any such solution MUST be agreed to by the victim or the victim's family NOT imposed on the victim or the Victim's family by the courts. This is the reason for the phase "Show no pity", for that is instructions to the Judge was what the punishment shall be, the victim and the victim's family are to work out alternatives to the actual sentence (Through often with guidelines from the Judge, which is how punishment slowly went from control of the victim to control by the Judge as you go from the Middle ages into the Renaissance and the enlightenment, you saw less and less control over the punishment by the Victim and more and more by the Courts, till by 1800 it was 100 determined by the Courts (Mostly because the powers that be did NOT like what victim and juries wanted as a settlement, the rich wanted to pay less when do to their negligence someone was hurt and thus the Rich preferred a sentence by a Judge as opposed to having to the deal with the family.

[dems_rightnow]

15. It's a whole lot easier

to not want retribution when it's not your daughter that got murdered. I can't say how I'd feel.

[proteus_lives]

3. He should be sent to juvie until he's eighteen and then prison for the rest of his life.

[Mudoria]

16. I agree

[bluestateguy]

6. Oh yeah, that kid sounds like a real prize

Life in prison with no possibility of parole. But hey, he'll have an opportunity to set the world's record for most number of years spent in prison!

He's never going to amount to anything anyway.

[depakid]

11. You forgot the sarcasm tag...

[MN TN]

17. I wonder if there is anything we can do about criminal youths who do this?

Maybe we should try deportation?

[hlthe2b]

19. I certainly don't think he should simply be treated as a juvenile...

and released at 18. On the other hand, (and at the risk of showing my "bleeding heart liberal status"), I'd like to know what, if any extenuating circumstances there might be in this kid's life to explain his behavior. Was he in a gang? Was he in an abusive home? What is his psych profile and thus possibilities for rehabilitation at any point in time.


Again, I certainly think he deserves a long prison sentence from juvenile to adult. But, I find it difficult to "throw away the key" for someone so young. That said, I can certainly understand the victim's father's feelings on the matter.

[Dappleganger]

24. As a mother to a 12 yr. old son...

this just breaks my heart. I cannot even begin to think of the steps it took for a boy to get to the point of committing this kind of a crime.

Education would have saved him...why aren't we spending more money there??