15 Yr Old Alyssa Bustamante: Being Tried As An Adult
It seems that the country is having to deal more and more with children who are committing adults crimes. And it puts a lot of pressure on both communities and the legal system because there always has to be a debate as to whether a child is tried as a juvenile or an adult, without any real standards for making the decision.
Case in point is the killing of a 15-year old girl, Vada Vasquez, in New York City by 16-year old Carvett Gentles, a small kid who admits to the accidental shooting. He wasn’t even aiming at her, just randomly shooting into a crowd to impress some older gang members, many of whom were arrested along with him. In essence, hanging with the wrong crowd. At 5′5″, 110, pounds, he looks like he’s not even a teenager himself, and cried as police took him away. It hasn’t been decided yet if he’ll be tried an as adult or not.
Then we have the killing of 9-year old Alyssas Bustamante by a 15-year old neighbor, Elizabeth Olten in Jefferson City, MO, who said she just wanted to see what it was like to kill somebody. She killed the little girl by slashing her throat, then strangling her. She’s going to be tried as an adult, even though her defense attorneys want to have her psychologically tested to see if she’s mentally able to stand trial and understands her actions.
Next we have the story of a 10-year old in Albuquerque, NM, whose name isn’t given, that shot his father in the head because he was angry. Supposedly there had been many calls to the police about domestic abuse, at least 9, and only one call had ever been substantiated, but it involved the mother, who wasn’t present as the parents were divorced, and the father had custody of the children. In this case, the child won’t be tried as an adult because New Mexico law doesn’t allow it for anyone under the age of 14, but prosecutors have filed first degree murder charges.
Though the New Mexico law seems the most humane, this type of thing seems to be happening more and more. And more states are going to have to figure out how to either set standards for prosecuting these types of crimes or change the definition of intent and cognizance of what they’re doing because children are smart. If they know they can’t receive adult punishment for certain crimes, who knows what they may do next?
