I would say people who believe that a 14 year old is capable of making their own informed choices. I'm sure they would be able to get plenty of 14 year olds to agree. It's easy for us to look at that situation and disagree with it because the kid is a minor. But if someone else says 13 is the age where a minor is no longer a minor, then we would probably just look at that particular 14 year old as someone who broke the law and not as an outrage against childhood. IMHO. . (Sorry I didn't watch the video, no speakers.) +3

Once upon a time I would have said you can't charge children who commit murder as adults but in recent history we have seen murderers get younger and younger, they even go so far as to plan it out for weeks or months in advance. Kid's are not the innocents they once were. NOW in this case, I don't think the kid had a snowballs chance in hell at getting a fair trial.

Personally, I don't really agree with the death penalty in most cases. I can't imagine putting a 14-year-old boy in the electric chair. On a side note, this topic makes me think of a bit entitled "How Old is Fifteen" that Dave Chappelle did in one of his performances in DC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n5_3ZcfcPU

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. When it comes to murder society (especially the US) for the most part cannot distinguish vengeance from justice. When ever there is a death, somebody has to pay. Call it justice, call it closure, society hate to see anyone “get away with it”. Add the racial factor and it makes it easier to punish those when there is no one else to convict. They are less human because those individuals are part of “them” not “us”. But as David Chappelle said, age (especially here in the US) is not seen consistent across the board. At 15 you can boink like bunnies and it is seen as de facto legal, because there is no punishment for it, not even in the case where the minor pursues the adult as in the Mary K. incident. You can't drink, not suppose to smoke (oh, you are not suppose to be able to buy tobacco products, smoking is one of those de facto legal things), can't enter into contracts, vote, drive a car, get a full time job, book a cruise, you get the point. However, a 15 year old gets treated as an adult usually when money and crime is at issue. Riding public transportation, a jet, train, amusement park ride, theater tickets etc then sure, they get seen as adults. Certainly if they do crimes like car jacking, kidnap, rape, murder. Society all of a sudden wants to see the person as adult because the vengeance thing. They don't want some 15 year old, getting free at 21 years of age for raping 5 females and killing 3 for instance. The punishment seem too light for the crime. Remember justice and closure only comes if the person suffers as much as or more than the victim and the victim's family suffered. Something need to be done with violent teens because they have gotten more violent, but the death penalty to try to close a loophole is not it.

Personally, i am against the death penalty in any case. But to kill a child is worse. The brain is not fully developed at that age and the emotional development is incomplete, that is why children are generally considered to be irresponsible.