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What should California do with its (former) juve killer?

By Douglas A. Berman

This New York Times piece, headlined "A Killer at 16, and Still in California?s Juvenile Justice System Decades Later," documents a notable case that perhaps lacks any easy solution. Here is how the piece starts: Except for one detail and one horrifying crime, Donald Schmidt is a run-of-the-mill juvenile offender.  He watches television, does chores, talks to his lawyer and waits for his release. Donald Schmidt, 37, molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl.  The detail is his age: Mr. Schmidt is 37, the oldest defendant ever in California?s juvenile justice system.  Just 16 when he molested and drowned a 3-year-old girl while high on methamphetamine, he has been in juvenile facilities for two decades, sometimes alongside teenagers who were not yet born when he was convicted...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 26, 2009 (boomark / email).