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| Charging juveniles with murder not a rare occurrence |
| By news-press.com- Chris Umpierre |
| Published: 08/06/2014 |
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Thirteen-year-old Cape Coral resident Yoel Munoz may be one of the youngest Lee County juveniles charged with murder, but his arrest isn't uncommon for the region, state or nation. Florida is one of the few states that has no minimum age for indicting people. Prosecutors in Florida frequently file adult charges against juveniles, and have discretion to do so in many cases for youths who are 14 or older. Lee and Collier counties have had youngsters as young as 14 accused of homicide. In 2011, 14-year-old Palmetto Ridge High student Jorge Saavedra was charged with stabbing and killing a 16-year-old classmate after they got off a Collier County school bus. The court judge ruled Saavedra acted in self-defense. Children as young as 8 have been prosecuted as adults in several states, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Alabama that defends indigent defendants and prisoners. Nationally, 73 U.S. inmates are spending the rest of their lives in prison for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14. Children, however, can't be sentenced to death. Recent Supreme Court rulings have ordered courts to handle youths differently from adults, even those accused of serious crimes, because children's brains aren't as developed as adults. Read More. |
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