Lionel Tate Case Study

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In 2001, a fourteen-year-old juvenile by the name of Lionel Tate was charged as an adult with murder in the first degree. In relation to the Criminal Justice System, multiple articles and other numerous sources, such as Michael J. Dale (2004), state that Lionel Tate “was considered the youngest person in the United State to have ever been given the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.” At the age of 12, Lionel Tate murdered a little 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick in Pembroke Park, Florida 1999. On July 28th of that year, Tiffany’s mother asked her long life friend, Lionel’s mother Kathleen, if she would watch Tiffany for the evening. After dinner, Kathleen had withdrawn from the kitchen to upstairs leaving the children to watch …show more content…
By imprisoning Lionel, he did not receive any rehabilitation, and instead grew up scared and in fear while in prison. While these opinions could be true about other juveniles, this is not the case for Lionel Tate. Lionel did show signs of fear and crying during his demise, but that does not give him the title of a victim. If Lionel is a victim in any way, he is a victim to himself. At the age of 12, he already showed multiple behavioral problems. After he was given a second chance, Tate had an opportunity to make the right decisions, but instead decided to violate parole. For Lionel, he was not just given one, but two second chances in which his life rested in his own hands and after reading the case, he did not make smart decisions. According to Cambridge Dictionary (2017) to be considered a victim, “one must be harmed, injured, or killed because of a crime.” The fact that Lionel had numerous opportunities to show improvement exemplifies why he does not fall in this category. The only category that Lionel Tate falls into is that of a

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