The Issue Of Young Murder Suspects Should Be Tried As Adults Essay

The article raises the issue of whether young murder suspects should be tried as adults, as a result of cases in Massachusetts and how the State is going to handle the issue following the United States Supreme Court ruling that an Alabama law that gave juveniles convicted of murder mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional. Massachusetts law had anyone 14 years or older accused of murder be tried as an adult, the article at the time debated the next move the State’s Judicial Court will make.
DISCUSSION
While the article focuses on severe crime by juveniles, it sparks the broader debate as to whether juveniles should be tried in adult courts at all. This issue is important to me because our criminal justice system clearly distinguishes between adults and juveniles and has made juveniles court system different from adult court. Why then should certain discretions be allowed to decide to transfer a juvenile to an adult court because of they committed an ‘adult crime’? My position therefore is that juveniles should never be tried as adults whatsoever.
There variations of State laws about how juveniles are tried in courts. One of the first actions taken during the juvenile court process is determining whether a case should be processed in the criminal justice system rather than in juvenile court. All states have in place judicial procedures through which certain juvenile offenders may be tried as adults in the criminal system, and they…