Homicide Case Against Boy Rouses Punishment Debate

Like her neighbors, Sandy Willis was troubled when she heard about the 12-year-old boy who allegedly killed his mother and younger brother. "Where does it end?" she asked herself. Then she learned that he was being charged as a juvenile.

Now she's outside her apartment, in the complex where the homicides took place, calling for tougher justice.

"If you are 12 and you kill a man, then you have to do a man's time," she says, shaking her head. Moments later, neighbor Wayne Davis walks up and overhears her. And he, too, shakes his head, but for a different reason.

"He's just a baby," he blurts out. "He has a chance to change."

Last weekend's double homicide in Prince George's County has ignited strong opinions across the region over whether very young children accused of violent crimes should be punished as adults, even as such crimes have become more rare.

The number of killings committed by juveniles has been declining nationally since 1994, and arrest rates for juvenile violent crimes are at their lowest in a generation, according to a Department of Justice study this year.

The boy, who is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, would face a life sentence in prison if he were tried as an adult. But as in many other states, including Virginia, a Maryland resident younger than 14 cannot be charged as an adult with murder and transferred to an adult criminal court. In the District, the threshold is 15 years old.

Cases of such children are typically handled in the juvenile system. In Maryland, prosecutors can petition a juvenile-court judge to allow the case to move into adult court, but that is rarely used for a young child.

If the 12-year-old boy is found guilty, he could be remanded to a program for troubled youths and be released when he turns 21 -- or even earlier.

"In Maryland, the problem we face is: What do you do with a 12- or 13-year-old who commits multiple murders in our system of justice?" said James Backstrom, co-chairman of the National District Attorneys Association's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. "There need to be something more than juvenile court prosecution."

Child advocates say that the juvenile system can adequately address violent crimes and that young offenders can be rehabilitated with proper treatment and attention.

"Hold him accountable, impose sanctions and some degree of retribution, but in a way that is appropriate for his age," said Marsha Levick, legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a national children's rights group based in Philadelphia.