12 Year Olds Do Not Have the Inteligence To Sort Things Through.
Posted: Friday, June 09, 2006
by Clare O'Keefe
Christopher Pittman
A 17 year old boy committed a terrible crime when he was 12 years old and under the influence
of a mind altering drug ( Zoloft.) If anyone should be in prison it is the Doctor who prescribed the drug for him, giving him samples in a paper bag with the instructions written on the bag by him. He never treated young Christopher Pittman before, he never got in touch with his former Doctor or Psychiatrist who treated him for depression with Paxil. the child did as he was told, he took his medication.
In addition, because Christopher Pittman tried to cover up the crime through arson, and fled, jurors may believe he had enough presence of mind that he was not intoxicated in the sense that most people use the term.
Sixth Circuit Solicitor John Justice said the same thing, this child was calm.
He showed no sign of being medicated. The men that found him in the woods that morning
said he was walking back and forth, back and forth, waiving a loaded rifle.
Legally, however, intoxication is not equivalent to drunkenness: It simply means that the defendant is under the influence of a substance he did not willingly take (perhaps by being duped into drinking something that contained an undisclosed intoxicant), or in this case, that he did willingly take, under doctor's orders, but without the benefit of the warning of possible violence-inducing side effects. The Judge should have made this very clear to the jurors.
We can be sure that they considered intoxication as being drunk, maybe slurred speech, maybe even falling down. That is not what it is.
When instructing the jurors the judge failed Christopher.
We have an obligation to this child. This child is not a hardened criminal.
He was not an adult, not even a teen ager at the time of his Grandparents death, and he is still not an adult. He deserves equal protection of the law, and he deserves Constitutional Rights that adults get.
The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now. — South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905).
Clare
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)It's Zoloft, people.
I am also twelve. I take Zoloft. I have not, nor do I have any urgs to commit crimes.
...
The kid is crazy.
Well thank God for that.
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