Ethical Decision-Making in Juvenile Justice – Analyzing a Case of a Juvenile Tried as an Adult

Ethical Decision-Making in Juvenile Justice – Analyzing a Case of a Juvenile Tried as an Adult

According to a news report by WEAU 13 News, in April 2022, ten-year-old Lily Peter was reported missing by her parents in Chippewa Falls. The next morning, her body was found with blunt force trauma injuries to her head, and some of her clothes were also missing. Further, the autopsy confirmed that the little girl had been sexually assaulted before she was killed. C. P-B, a fourteen-year-old who was friends with Lily, admitted to luring her into the woods with the intention of assaulting her and killing her. Seeing the severity of the crime, which was first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of sexual assault, the judge decided that the suspect would be sent to adult court as opposed to juvenile court.

Juveniles who commit heinous crimes are usually tried as adults, so this was not a rare occurrence. However, the defense team wanted to reverse the decision and have their client sent to juvenile court instead. They filed a petition for a reverse waiver back to juvenile court based on the findings that the client did indeed have multiple verified psychological disorders. The ethical dilemmas that were involved in this case were for the judge to decide whether the moral demands of criminal law accepted the legal insanity defense for this particular case, taking the actions of the suspect into consideration.

After deliberation, the judge denied the petition, and the case proceeded to adult court. Notably, I believe that the decision made by the judge was ethical because the legal insanity defense was insufficient based on the facts of the case. The suspect was completely rational, and there was also the fact that he cleaned himself up after committing the crime. He even went back to the crime scene and tried to hide Lily after he heard about the search for the missing girl. As supported by King and May (2022), all these contradict the legal insanity defense because the suspect behaved like a person who was aware that whatever they had done was wrong, which, according to the legal insanity defense, an insane person does not do.

References

King, M & May J. (2022). Agency in mental disorder: Philosophical dimensions. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

WEAU. (2022). Judge rules suspect in Lily Peters case to stay in adult court. WEAU 13 NEWS. https://www.weau.com/2024/01/22/judge-rules-suspect-lily-peters-case-stay-adult-court/

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Ethical Decision-Making in Juvenile Justice – Analyzing a Case of a Juvenile Tried as an Adult

When it comes to rehabilitation and reintegration into society, ethical decision-making involves considering what is best for the justice-involved individual, the community at large, and the criminal justice system as a whole. Locate a recent case involving complex factors where a judge made a ruling that a juvenile could be tried as an adult.

What happened in this case? What were some of the ethical dilemmas involved in the decision-making process for this case that the judge considered during the pretrial custody hearing? Do you believe the decision was ethical? Why or why not?