Petition for Cristian Fernandez - please sign and share

[Tana]

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All kids do things and dont know any better how is christian supposed to know what he did was wrong if his parents and the state isnt there for him to teach him right from wrong. He needs to go to some kind of facility and get some inpatient care to know what he has learned from those so called parents is not the right things to do and after he goes through that kinda help with the doctors reasses and find out where to go from there.

[Melissa]

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Hi Tana,
I agree it is important to get Cristian treatment. His brain will not be fully developed until he is between 18 and about 21. This is verified through medical studies. Now is the best time to address the trauma he has experienced in the past and teach him ways to deal with that and with the emotions he has.

[Melissa]

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152,669 signatures! Incredible!!

[AC-Mustgo]

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A 10 year-old has been charged with murder, yet he can’t understand sex until he’s 16?  This is exactly what the law is saying. 

If anyone touched that boy before he turned the legal age of consent, they’d go to prison for a long time and be considered a sex offender, yet when the boy stabs another in the heart, he suddenly has full mental capacity to know what he did.  I can’t believe the courts would actually end that boys future over a stupid, ignorant mistake that he had NO understanding of as far as ramifications.  TV, media and parenting are all to blame in this case.  Violent video games get their fair responsibility in it too. 

Where has this country screwed up?  Who in the hell are making these laws and calling the shots?  I can’t believe grown adults are so ignorant. 

I’m completely perplexed.  Perhaps you can help me understand.
 
 
 
10-year-old boy charged with murder
 
By Rick Boone FOX 5 San Diego Reporter
 
SAN DIEGO – Prosecutors filed murder charges Wednesday against a 10-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 12-year-old friend in an East County neighborhood.
 
A detention hearing for the boy is planned for Thursday morning in Juvenile Court.
 
Ryan Carter, 12, was stabbed in the chest about 1:15 p.m. Monday in the driveway of the younger boy’s home in the 12500 block of Royal Road in the unincorporated Winter Gardens area, near El Cajon, according to sheriff’s officials.
 
Paramedics took Carter to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, where he died about 2:30 p.m., Lt. Larry Nesbit said. The alleged killer’s name was withheld due to being a juvenile.
 
Glen Carter said his family is coping with their son’s death and has mixed feelings about the murder charge.
 
“It’s just sad for both families. This is going to be tough to get through,” Carter said. “It’s up to the courts now.”
 
The suspect’s age will play a factor in the trial.  The judge could require the 10-year-old to undergo mental evaluation which could take up to eight months before the trial could move forward, a criminal attorney told Fox 5.
 
The attorney said the suspect’s parents are not at fault, but could face civil action.
 
The suspect, who was reportedly being medicated for aggressive behavior problems, was being held in Juvenile Hall while prosecutors reviewed the case.

[dustysdad]

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NO reason for a reversal. He knew what he was doing.

Lets turn the tables. If he were to kill your son, Would you want him prosecuted as an adult?
or Why don't we hold his parents responsible for his actions.

[Bryan]

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How in the world did we get to the point of charging kids as adults? Isn't there a juvenile system? Methinks that trying kids as adults had a racial origin, as well as an historical one.

When the "try kids as adults" drive started, it was the an aftereffect of the disorder of the 1960's and 1970's, when Supreme Court rulings, along with chronic underfunding of juvenile court systems combined to drive politicians no matter the gender, but mostly white, to react like scared rabbits when it came to kids committing "capital crimes" (like murder or rape). A misunderstanding of adolescent psychology only added to the crisis. The lawmakers thought not to do so was like playing a crapshoot with the public if a child was not sent to jail for the rest of their life. So up went the punishment mantra over the reform mantra.

However in some localities, there always was no age limit for trying a kid in adult court for any crime, not only murder and rape. The era of the 60's and 70's drove prosecutors to turn off their common sense in a growing number of cases. That is why one could read of injustices before those days because the locales either did not have a juvenile system or thought they could not reform a underage murderer or rapist. It was not until the 1970's that the drive to send underage persons to jail for life started to become popular. People who changed these laws point out that if they did not, someone else would.

The 1980's and 1990's saw the insanity rise to where it is today. Get tough on crime meant even thieves and assults transfer to adult court with no difficulty. The rest is a series of injustices that are shameful to behold. Often when juveniles fight to get their crimes put back into juvenile court, many years can pass. That is because prosecutors often fight back as well. No kid or his legal counsel is going to tell them who not to send to adult court.

It is the character of the prosecutor that is to blame, thinking a one-size-fits-all excuse to just automatically send a boy or girl to adult court without thinking the risk factors to the child's future. In the prosecutor's point of view, that suspect lost his rights to childhood the moment they kill someone else. They think no child is unreformable when they off someone else. They just cannot take the chance of that child growing up into a free person and then committing another crime, no matter how minor. It is all a matter of the prosecutor's living. They do not want to get the blame for their prosecutions.