The stories of children thrown into the adult legal system are endless. Every year hundreds of children are charged, tried and sentenced as adults for a variety of crimes. Many find they are not awarded the chance for rehabilitation that many adult criminals are. Why should a child be treated as an adult in the legal system but still does not have the rights that adults all have? Why does that fine line exist that allows many over-zealous prosecutors the right to decide if a kid should be called adult? 
Here are a few examples of the miscarriages of justice that befall children in our country. 
 		 Alex and Derek King were 12 and 13 when they were charged with beating their sleeping father to death with an aluminum baseball bat. Although their claims that family friend and once convicted child molester, Rick Chavis was the actual killer, who had been sexually abusing Alex for several months, fell on deaf ears, they stuck by their story until they finally agreed to a plea that required them to admit to the killing and serve 7 and 8 years.
On a quiet January night in 1998, 12 year old Stephanie Crowe was stabbed to death in her own bed. Her body was discovered by family members early the next morning. The entire family was taken to the police station and treated as suspects. Eventually, the investigating detectives centered on the girl's 14 year old brother, Michael Crowe. After intense interogation over a period of two days, they finally convinced the boy he was guilty and he confessed. Witnesses placed a strange man outside the Crowe home the night of the murder but the man was released after questioning. After 8 months in jail, Michael's parents and his attorney were able to force the police to back off and eventually the state found that Michael and his two friends were innocent
 
Lionel Tate was all of 12 years old when he killed a 6 year old girl in what was described as an accidental rough imersonation of a
wrestling move. The boy was found guilty and senteced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For a 12 year old, that is a long time without a chance to rehabilitate. Another child thrown away by the system.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

15 year old Daniel Carter sits in the Escambia County, Florida jail, awaiting trial for 1st Degree Murder in the stabbing death of his uncle. Just over one year ago, Daniel's uncle, Jack, told his sister he was coming over to disipline Daniel for going through his magazines. Jack had been drinking and was on several medications. When he arrived, he dragged Daniel from his bed and began beating on him and threatened to tie him up and castrate him. In a panic, the boy attempted to call 911 but the phone was grabbed from him by Jack and ripped from the wall. During the struggle, Daniel managed to get hold of a large knife, slashing in a defensive manor, until the knife ripped across Jack's throat and cut his jugular vein. The man died soon after. The District Attorney's office charged the boy with 1st Degree rathter than seeing it as a cut and dried case of self defense.
12 year old Nathanial Brazill was charged with the shooting death of his English teacher. He was tried as an adult for 1st Degree Murder, but the
jury convicted him of 2nd degree and sentenced him to 28 years in prison. Gov. Bush had stated that the boy should not have been tried as an adult and promised to expedite clemency proceedings if asked, but to this date, has yet to act.
 		 On May 7, 2000, in the parking lot of a Ramada Inn in Jacksonville, Florida, 65-year-old Mary Ann Stephens is shot in the head before her husband's very eyes. Ninety minutes later, 15-year-old Brenton Butler is arrested. Everything is against him: he is formally identified by the only eye-witness, Mr Stephens, and he signs a confession. For the investigators and the media who cover the story, it is just another messed-up youth, just another wasted life. But when the case for the defense comes into the hands of Patrick Mac Guiness, the story ceases to be quite so ordinary. The boy proclaims his innocence. He has bruises on his face and thorax. He tells that the detectives beat him up and forced a confession out of him. In the end, Brenton is found not guilty by the jury who believed the detectives in the case had lied. Later his family filed a law suit against the Sheriff's department and won a settlement of $775,000. One year later, the police finally check for fingerprints on the victim's purse and a print is found inside. The print belonged to a young man who was arrested, charged, tried and found guilty of the murder. Brenton suffered the pains of an unjust system where the police only wanted closure on this case and not the guilty party. It backfired on them but they have yet to be charged with anything. Butler's  story was later made into a documentary, "Murder on a Sunday Morning" which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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The infamous West Memphis Three case has caused controversy for ten years now. In May of 1993, three eight year old boys, Christopher Murray(Byers), Steven Branch and Michael Moore were brutally torchured and murdered. Their nude little bodies were found in a wooded area off of Interstate 40 known as Robinhood Hills. A short time later, three teenage boys, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were arrested and charged with the murders.
Two television documentaries have been made about this case and has brought much public interest in it. Evidence tends to actually point away from the three teens convicted, and toward another man, but the police refuse to change their way of thinking and stick by their theory that the guilty were convicted. Sound familiar? Echols, was sentenced to die and both Jessie and Jason were given life sentences. All are appealing their convictions. Much of the evidence used against the teens was circumstantial and has been disputed by private investigators who have followed this
case. Poor investigation practices and shoddy handling of the crime scene are only part of what supporters of the teens point out in defense of Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin. Their liking of heavy metal music is part of what was the minor evidence used to convict them
 Even the biological father of the most mutilated victim, Christopher, believes the three teens are innocent and wants the real killer or killers found. This case is overly sad due to the fact that the three little victims who died so violently are not the only victims. The three teens now in prison are victims as well.
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Charles Andrew "Andy" Williams is guilty of taking a gun to his San Diego High School and shooting to death 2 boys and wounding several others. The circumstances that led up to the shooting were never publisized to allow the world to know, not make explainations for, but to know this troubled boy's reasoning the day of the shooting. As a fairly new student, Andy was forced to endure bullying and torture by bigger and tougher students who believed making fun of the smaller boy and treating him as a leper was fun. Andy had cigarettes
  extinguished on his body, his head dunked into an unflushed toilet and bruises from the many, many beatings he took. He was held down and urinated on by fellow students as well as constantly spit on. These are but a few of 
the humiliations the boy suffered that built up to one vengeful act. One month prior to the shooting, his best friend was killed in a bus related accident. Andy Williams found his mind in turmoil and no one took the time to try and help.
 
Neal and Jesse Eldridge were 14 and 15 when they shot and killed their father in self defense. The Arkansas brothers finally pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter for fear of what further time locked up would do to them and their young sisters. The boys were forced to defend themselves against an abusive father who had made their lives a living hell from almost day one. Both still suffer from extreme physical pain due to the years of abuse that the state refused to act on. The legal system failed to protect them during their childhood and then turned on them when they tried to protect themselves and their much younger sisters. 

 
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Jun 3, 2001; CURTIS KRUEGER; Excerpt:

Ian Manuel was 13 when he shot Deborah Baigrie during a stickup in a parking lot of the Cold Storage Cafe in downtown Tampa 11 years ago. The bullet entered her mouth and ripped out of her cheek. She lost her gums and teeth on the left side of her mouth.

Manuel had committed his first robbery at age 11. At sentencing, the judge told him: "There is no second chance available." He is 24 now, in solitary confinement in Florida State Prison, by reputation the state's toughest. He has been sanctioned repeatedly for fighting, exposing himself to guards, disobeying and 
other infractions. "The last time I shared a cell with someone was in 1998," Manuel wrote in a letter. The DOC would not allow him to be interviewed.
He said he gets out of his cell for three hours of recreation per week, in a small area "that everyone even the officers call 'dog cages.' "
His worst moments came in 1996, when his mother died of AIDS and he was unable to attend the funeral, and last year, when he was resentenced on one of is charges but still kept his same overall release date: Never

 
16 year old Aaron Paparillo, has been charged with 4 counts of rape on 3 minor females. Aaron is completely deaf and his handicap has not been taken into account during his treatment in the legal system. The police went to the boy's special school in St. Augustine and took the boy into custody without the knowledge of his father. For two days Michael Paparillo tried desperately to find his son. Aaron was treated badly by jailers who did not consider his deafness when he did not do as they told him to do.An investigator in Aaron's case lied to the judge in order to get Aaron into the adult system by telling the judge that Aaron was 17 when in fact, at the time, the boy was only 14. Why is this man still an investigator if he can boldly tell lies to get what he wants at the cost of a child?

 
In 1997, teenager, Rebecca Falcon was having a bout with depression. She began drinking one night and went out to meet a friend. The friend brought another boy, a 18 year old who took Rebecca for a ride in a taxi cab. Rebecca claims that this 18 year old decided to pull a gun and shoot the cab driver to death. The next morning, she called and told her mother what had happened and they went to the police station together to tell the truth. Rebecca was arrested and charged with the murder and found guilty at trial, was sentenced to life without parole. The prosecutor in her case stated he had wished he could ask for the death penalty.

 
And even in the care of the Department of Juvenile Justice does not secure a child's safety. One troubling and sad example of that is the case of Shawn Smith.
At 11, in 1999, Shawn Smith was arrested and charged with fondling a young girl. Found guilty, he was sent into the custody of Juvenile Justice. During the next few months, he was charged with assaulting guards at the facility where he was. He was transferred to Volusia County Regional Juvenile Detention Center, where on October 30, 2001, the 13 year old boy hanged himself. The system designed and people assigned to  protect and help him, were no where near when the young boy died while in their care.