Legal Brief Essay, Research Paper

Throwing the Book at Kids

A twelve-year-old boy, Lionel Tate, brutally beat a six-year-old girl to death in South Florida in 1999. Tate was pretending to be a pro wrestler while he pummeled this girl to death, her liver even had split in half. A Florida law was recently passed which made it easier for prosecutors to try kids as adults. Tadfggc dfcvbbgds vgdf cvbbte was unfortunately one of those kids. He was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 14. Now everyone is regretting the decision once they seen the poor kid crying because his whole life is gone and there is nothing he can do about it.

The problem that lies here is whether or not Tate really deserves to be sentenced to death at such a young age. No one that young has ever been sentenced to life in prison before. And Florida and California are the only states that have laws this harsh, but many other states were considering on following the same way as Florida and California. This is a legal issue because it is a question of whether This law is unconstitutional or it is perfectly acceptable.

The pros to this case is that maybe it will stop other states from following in the footsteps of Florida and California. And maybe even this will get rid of the law in those states. The Cons of course are very bad. A 14 year old s life has just been thrown away and will mostly likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. There was some information missing in this article such as details about the court case itself. It kind of just says that the decision was life in jail and that s it.

Hopefully the decision the Florida Court made will open up people s eyes. They will realize that these laws need to be more specified or thrown away. These two states weren t thinking when they made these laws and didn t think about any of the consequences at all. They were rushed to quickly and now they need to be atleast changed.

In my opinion I think the courts decision is one of the dumbest decisions I ve ever heard. I 100% disagree with the court. Weather Tate knew that he was hurting the girl or just was just wrestling just doesn t matter. A boy that young deserves to get a second chance and his whole life should not be ruined by this one decision. I m definitely not saying he should go unpunished, because he should, but he should have not been tried as an adult.