A kid as young as ten can be tried as an adult in Pennsylvania? Bad law.
Some observers shocked that 12-year-old will be tried as adultBy Chris Togneri
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ten years is not enough time to rehabilitate a Lawrence County boy charged with killing his father's pregnant fiancee, a judge ruled yesterday.
"A more horrific crime is difficult to imagine," Common Pleas Judge Dominick Motto wrote in ruling Jordan Brown will stand trial as an adult. State police say Brown, then 11, placed a shotgun to the back of Kenzie Marie Houk's head and pulled the trigger last year.
If convicted of first-degree murder, Brown could be the youngest person in American history to be sentenced to life in prison without parole, legal experts said.
"I'm in shock," defense attorney Dennis Elisco said. "This is certainly the lowest point of my 29-year career. We're just devastated."
Motto denied a request by defense attorneys to move the case to juvenile court. Had the case been tried there, the state could not hold Brown, 12, beyond his 21st birthday.
During hearings this year, Motto heard conflicting testimony from experts on whether Brown could be rehabilitated.
"It is not likely defendant can be rehabilitated prior to the expiration of the juvenile court jurisdiction," Motto wrote. "(Brown) is an individual with significant personality problems that are complicated by his presenting to people in authority a version of himself that does not include the negative aspects."
Brown is charged with the February 2009 shooting deaths of Houk and her unborn son, Christopher. Police say Brown shot Houk as she lay in bed in the family's New Galilee home, and then left the house to get on the school bus.
Defense attorney David Acker said he and Elisco are considering an appeal.
Christopher Brown, Jordan's father, did not comment. He drove to the Edmund L. Thomas Adolescent Detention Center in Erie, where his son is housed, to explain Motto's decision.
The boy cried throughout the visit, Elisco said. "I don't know if he really understands the meaning of 'the rest of your life.' "
Motto said he considered several factors, including Jordan Brown's amenability to rehabilitation, psychological evaluations of the boy and the impact of the crime. He considered the nature and circumstance of the crime, noting that Houk was 8 1/2 months pregnant and defenseless.
"There is no indication of any provocation by the victim that led to her killing. This offense was an execution-style killing of a defenseless pregnant young mother," Motto wrote.
He placed the case on the May trial list but did not set a trial date.
Houk's mother, Deborah Houk, said she is "pleased" Jordan Brown will be tried as an adult.
"I don't see how it could have been handled any other way," she said. "But it's not a victory. There is no victory. Not with the loss of a child and a grandchild."
Motto's ruling stunned some legal observers.
"I am shocked," said Jeffrey Shook, a professor of social work at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on the juvenile justice system. "We know a lot about young people and how they're different, and to treat someone who is 11 at the time of their offense as an adult really rejects a lot of what we know about adolescent brain development."
Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia and expert on adolescent behavior and brain biology, said "the idea of taking a child this age and locking them up for life is pretty repugnant. What he (allegedly) did is repugnant also. But the heinousness of the crime does not make him an adult."
Robert Schwartz, executive director of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, believes Brown could receive the treatment he needs.
"It seems from the opinion that the judge treats an 11-year-old's state of mind as if it were an adult's state of mind," he said. "Anybody who knows anything about 11-year-olds knows that that's a stretch."
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