Jackie Fellows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Hi Sue
It is the gist of what is going on with the murder trial here. The
events preceding the murder was a three-day drinking party, drug dealing
and rumors of an ordered hit on one of the alleged killers. Erickson is
one of the alleged killers and is presently on trial. the second
defendant already pled guilty to a lessser charge and was a witness
against him in trade for the lesser charge. Another witness was the 18
year old who hosted the party (wonder what she was offered?). She
maintained the night of the shooting the two left the party and then
came back in with different clothes on (all black). The two acted
differently--the defendant acted incoherently and the convicted one
acted very down and quiet. The prosecuting attorney said the victim had
23 holes in his body caused by 10 shots. The fiancee testified that she
heard shots and that he wimpered and died. The defense says that there
is no physical evidence linking them to the crime and no witnesses.
That is it so far.
This may be of interest to you: This is from one of the new books.
1987 they studies 14 death-row inmates who had been convicted of crimes
committed when they were under the age of 18 and had been presented to
the Supremem Court.
The inmates had been convicted of murders committed when they were
between the ages of nearly 16 to nearly 17. Mean was 16 1/2. In
addition to these 14, there were an additional 23 inmates under sentence
of death who had committed criman as juveniles
Of the 14:
1. 8 had suffered injuries to the CNS sever enought to result in
hospitalization and/or indentation of the cranium
2. 9 had major neurological impairment
3. 7 were psychotic or had been diagnosed as psychotic earlier in
childhood, 4 had histories indicating severe mood disorder and the other
3 experienced occasional paranoid ideation
4. only 2 had IQs above 90 (which is below average); only 3 were
reading at grade level
5. 12 had been brutally, physically abused and 5 had been sodomized by
older male relatives.
Most of the juveniles had tried to hide evidence of their problem and
concealed their parents' brutality. parents also hid the evidence and
sometimes pressured child's attorney to keep this info secret
in only 5 of the 14 cases were pretrail evaluationsof any kind carried
out on the youths. Those evaluations done were usually perfunctory and
yielded inadequate data on the juveniles' neuropsychiatric and cognitive
functioning
Just a little something to think about when people feel that they made
the choice to commit the crime so now should face the punishment.
One reason the other 23 were not included in the study was that only 4
states would allow the research to be done--something else to ponder.
jackief
--
In the sociology room the children learn
that even dreams are colored by your perspective
I toss and turn all night. Theresa Burns, "The Sociology Room"
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