There's got to be some sort of "lose your ever-loving mind" drug in the water being drunk by law enforcement officers working with Black kids this past year.
I say that because I woke up Saturday morning after a very trying business trip, finally at home again but looking at a weekend full of work, to read on CNN that there are some ignoramuses in Greenville, Ohio, who think that a 10 year old Black child named Timothy Byers is capable of the mental state necessary to murder his entire family. They have reached that conclusion, and charged the 10 year little boy old with murder, solely because he set a fire that caused his house to burn down. And, since he confessed to deliberately setting a fire (a confession made outside the presence of his guardians -- his grandparents due to the death of his mother in the fire) he's a murderer.
Except for one tiny detail: nobody disputes that this little boy didn't mean to hurt anyone.
Read that again; I want to make sure you don't miss it:
A 10 year old Black boy admits that he set his house on fire.
The fire he set killed his mother and 8 year old half sister, as well as three other children (ages 3-6) who lived there.
He has been charged with 5 counts of juvenile murder.
Even though he did not mean to hurt anyone, let alone kill his own mother and others.
Now that we're all on the same page as to facts, before I say anything else, here's the law, the definition of murder in the State of Ohio:
Ohio Criminal Code 2903.02: (A) No person shall purposely cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy.
(B) No person shall cause the death of another as a proximate result of the offender's committing or attempting to commit an offense of violence that is a felony of the first or second degree and that is not a violation of section 2903.03 or 2903.04 of the Revised Code.
Just in case that didn't reach far enough, in Ohio you also have something called "aggravated murder", which apparently is a different animal although I'll let you decide what the difference is:
Criminal Code 2903.01: (A) No person shall purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy.
(B) No person shall purposely cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy while committing or attempting to commit, or while fleeing immediately after committing or attempting to commit, kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson, arson, aggravated robbery, robbery, aggravated burglary, burglary, terrorism, or escape.
Now, I know you're saying to yourself, as any rational person would: K, I think I understand this. If you commit premeditated murder, or commit murder deliberately while committing another felony, it's "aggravated murder". Otherwise, if you kill someone without advance planning, or kill someone during the commission of a felony "offense of violence" (the definition of which includes arson), it's just plain old murder. Unless of course it's a violation of Section 2903.03 or 2903.04, then it's not murder at all (even though we don't know yet what it says in those sections.)
Seems simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Ohio was the subject of some controversy just ten years ago when the Ohio Legislature, in what it claimed was an attempt to get "tough on violent crime" redefined the crime of "murder" (it doesn't happen all that often, the crime's elements having been pretty much established since...oh I don't know, about 500 years ago in English Common law) to include "felony murder". The controversy arose because people claimed that the new definition of "felony murder" actually caused "murder" to look very, very similar to a far lesser crime: a crime which everywhere but Ohio is called manslaughter. (The voluntary and involuntary levels of which are indeed, as I bet you guessed, defined by Ohio Criminal Code sections 2903.03 and 2903.04).
What you will find, if you actually look a little further, will leave your head reeling as mine was when I actually read section 2903.04(A), the first definition of Involuntary Manslaughter in the state of Ohio:
(A) No person shall cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy as a proximate result of the offender's committing or attempting to commit a felony.
Wait a minute, you may ask. Haven't I seen this language before? What, exactlyis the difference between voluntary manslaughter and murder in Ohio, if that's what the statutes actually say (Since 2903.02(B) and 2904.03(A) overlap when they describe, at least partially, the same thing -- a death caused by the commission of, or attempt to commit, a felony)?
Well, your guess is as good as mine. And as good as the guess Ohio trial court that was unfortunate enough to be faced with actually trying to articulate a clear difference between the murder described in 2903.02(A) and the voluntary manslaughter described in 2903.04(A) in cases involving "felony offenses of violence?" The "get tough" revision to the Ohio murder statute was challenged in court precisely because it largely collapsed two different types of homicide with far different degrees of moral culpability into each other, resulting in folks being charged with murder after the central inquiry by law enforcement into a fact that was previously the defining difference between the two crimes of murder and manslaughter was no longer required to support a charge of murder:
The question of intent to harm or kill a person.
The lucky judge who actually got the case reviewing the revised Ohio murder statute ultimately was forced to uphold it as a valid act of Ohio Legislature, even as he took the trouble to opine that the revised murder statute was "troublesome", "complicated" "confusing" and "absurd."
Absurd is the least of the words I can think of to describe charging a 10 year old child with murder, even in juvenile court. (Especially since, just to add a little sweetener into the absurdity mix, the confession that the child in this case gave was reportedly coerced after 3 days of questioning outside of his guardian's presence.) This conclusion is only furthered, not diminished by further study. I discovered right away a small, yet obvious, little problem in this case:
Problem #1: Arson is a wobbler crime: it can be a misdemeanor OR a felony in Ohio, depending on how the DA views not the actual harm caused, but the risk of substantial harm knowingly caused by the person who set the fire. If a substantial risk of harm was knowingly caused as to property, in Ohio it's usually misdemeanor arson. But if the substantial risk of harm was knowingly caused as to people, it's felony arson, aka "aggravated arson" (why don't they just call it "get on my nerves arson", since damned near every crime can be "aggravated" somehow in Ohio.) And, if the harm wasn't knowingly caused, it's not arson at all - but instead possibly a lesser crime, called either "vandalism" or "criminal endangering or damaging", I guess depending on what day of the week it is. (I won't even make you suffer by posting all these different laws here; I'll just link to the statutes (Sections 2909.01 - 2909.06) so you can read them for yourselves, if you can stomach it Ohio Arson Statutes.
If you weren't confused before about how a 10-year old got charged with murder for setting a fire when everyone appears to agree that he didn't mean to hurt anyone, you've got to be now. It has certainly left me confused, and I read law for a living. ;)
Oh well, at least they aren't jumping off the Jena Six diving board and trying to try this child as an adult: all have confirmed that this case will be heard in juvenile court, and as of today, he has finally been released into the custody of his grandparents.
I guess that's the good news. The bad news is that the maximum sentence this child can receive as a juvenile is 11 years detention in an Ohio Department of Youth Services (DYS) facility -- until he turns 21. Unless (there's always a but, isn't there?) he's a bad boy in juvenile hall: then he might be deemed a "serious youth offender" and sent directly to adult prison after his 11 years are up.
Do not pass Go. Do not collect the value of your lost adolescence.
So let's look at a not-too-unlikely scenario in this case:
This little boy is ultimately adjudicated a murderer -- of his own mother -- in juvenile court, even though he insists that he did not mean to hurt anyone (likely a truthful insistence, for the reasons I discussed below.)
Since 5 people died (and since the grandmother of the three young children not related to this youngster is calling for his head on a pike, as if somehow she forgot that children make mistakes in between being a mother and a grandmother), he gets the maximum confinement in Ohio DYS of 11 years.
During that time, he gets no meaningful education, despite state law finally requiring it in Ohio only ten years ago, since Ohio faces no consequences if they don't actually educate him and, besides, doesn't provide any educational services below the 6th grade, which a 10-year old is not ready for. Since we all know that nobody cares about what happens to "bad kids."
During that time, he gets no meaningful therapy to help him cope with and process the death of his mother (they're just getting around to even considering requiring such a thing, in Ohio), and the horrific knowledge that his own being a "naughty boy" caused it. Since we all know that nobody cares about what happens to "bad kids."
During that time, he is at risk of abuse by his caretakers, other DYS residents, you name it, despite efforts to clamp down on these things in Ohio DYS facilities. Since we all know that nobody cares about what happens to "bad kids."
So during his stay, our 10 year old accused murderer likely will have plenty of reasons to to act out (quite common with juveniles under emotional and psychiatric stress, which we can predict a 10 year old child being locked away for accidentally killing his mother and sister is likely to face) from time to time. If he does that, of course he'll likely get written up a bunch until his 21st birthday.
Meaning that, even after he becomes an adult, if he's acted out bad enough (despite the State of Ohio likely not having spent any meaningful time or money to make sure that this traumatized child is rehabilitated, the central purpose of juvenile adjudication; punishment is supposed to be a secondary concern), he gets sent to adult prison having never breathed free air since he was in the (I presume) 5th grade.
If and when he ever gets out of Ohio's cute "send from juvenile to adult prison merry-go-round" (since of course by then he'll have the spent the majority of his already short existence in jail) here's what will be the deal:
He will have never gone to junior high school or middle school.
He will never have gone to high school.
He will have never had a date.
He'll have never played school sports.
He'll have never known what it is like to go to a high school prom, or graduation ceremony.
Despite him having lived what we can all agree was a difficult life before this horrible accident happened, and certainly after if he is committed to DYS as a juvenile murderer, when it is all over, when it is all over, the State of Ohio will likely turn him back out into society, labeled a murderer (the worst label that our western society places on anyone, rightfully so when it's justified), and yet still blame him personally if he somehow doesn't manage to make it, despite no jobs for felons and a GED certificate being worth spit these days in the job market.
I am so tired of the criminal justice system beliving that our children's lives are worth NOTHING, that they can be just tossed aside in cases like this. This is not the machinery of justice. This is the machinery of racism, that a child who did not intend to hurt anyone from a stupid childish prank that happens over and and over and OVER again in this country is now looking at the end of his youth before it even started as punishment.
Why do I call it the machinery of racism, where we are talking about a Black child, with Black victims? Because it is the disproportionality of punishment that is racist -- as we have seen in Jena, with Shaquanda Cotton, with Kenneth Foster, with the New Jersey Four -- regardless of the actors and players in the system.
There is simply no explanation or justification for this type of overcharging by the Greenville DA, otherwise, given what is well known about cognitive abilities in young children, and given what appears to happen to young white children in Ohio when they make "mistakes" equal or greater in severity and frequency.
A 10 year old child usually fully understands death if he or she is somewhat precocious. Although kids of that age certainly have learned enough about death by that age to begin to fear it, it is an open question whether they understand its nature as a permanent, irreversible condition that is inevitable until later. Thus, most do not consider children to have an adult/mature understanding of death until their adolescence - i.e., until they are several years older than the child we're talking about here. (Many children in this age group see death as something they personally cause or can control in others through their own conduct, which in this case has horrific implications for this child's future mental health absent serious intervention, which a juvenile murder conviction is not likely to get him in a state where they didn't even mandate that juveniles get any type of meaningful education while in custody until 1997 - and even then made sure that the state's failure to actually provide the required education couldn't result in a lawsuit involving any money.)
How does a law operate that allows the label "murderer" to be applied to a 10-year old at all, when science does not support a conclusion that children of that age have the necessary levels of abstract thinking to be held to know and accurately understand death or even the inherent nature of fire? In theory, it doesn't -- not even in Ohio. In Ohio, the crime of arson is a crime requiring specific intent, for a reason. The reason is that it is not setting fire itself that is the crime; after all, you don't go to jail for burning leaves in your backyard. Thus, it is the knowing of the potential harm to life associated with fire and its pretty uncontrollable nature even as it relates to property that allows a finding of culpability for arson, a knowing we can fairly presume in most competent adults. Yet if a child doesn't fully understand -- because he's not old enough to understand -- either the nature of death or the nature of fire, let alone a connection between setting a fire and the risk of human death (and given the statistics about youthful firesetting, it's clear that a LOT of kids -- especially boys -- don't understand it, since fully 1/3 of all arson fires are set by children under the age of 15) how do you find him criminally culpable for a loss of life when he says he did not mean to hurt anyone? In theory, the criminal law doesn't allow you to, even in Ohio -- yet they arrested this little boy on murder charges anyway.
Doesn't the DA in Greenville think this child has already been punished enough? Hasn't life -- the death of his mother because he was "bad" -- already punished him enough?
I guess not. After all, it takes only one look at the systematic incarceration of Black youth at younger and younger ages for making youthful mistakes in judgment to know that a lot of people in our society feel that if you don't clamp down on these Black "delinquents" with the harshesh charges possible as early as possible when they make a childish mistake that's against the law, they just grow up to be thugs who commit -- at least in Ohio -- real crimes like "aggravated murder." (As if being deadded has degrees of dead).
And, clearly, accidentally killing folks from setting a fire is far far worse a crime than committing at least 26 felonies (initially reported as more than 100, but they weren't charged) like this little white Ohio cherub named Andrew Riley did during a year-long crime spree which surprised his own parents only in terms of the degree of criminality of their child, not the fact of it. A crime spree which indicated such depravity and lack of concern about the law at the age of 13 that the DA in charge of the case righteously insisted that the book was going to be thrown at young Master Riley if he was found guilty as charged of burglary, robbery, vandalism, and witness intimidation:
He's so young, we need to try and get him rehabilitated through the system.
.
His 14-year old accomplice Jeffrey Mehl - also likely white, although I haven't seen a photo of him yet - copped a plea to 9 out of 11 chargesafter his story of just being a victim fell a little bit apart and he failed to show up to court like he was supposed to. Yet his victims say there's still hope for him to change his ways and he just needs to understand that real people were affected by his actions.
I agree with both the victims in the Riley/Mehl case. Yet I have yet to read, in the hours it took me to write this, anyone from the DA's office expressing similar feelings about young Thomas Byers, the 10-year old now facing murder charges in Greenville, Ohio. Will anyone? I guess we know that if anyone does, it sure won't be the DA who felt he deserved to face 5 counts of murder (even juvenile murder; murder is murder) at the age of 10. I'd be sort of stunned if I did, when we're talking about a state where nearly 50% of all children committed to a DYS/juvenile incarceration facility in Onio are Black despite Black folks constituting only 11.5% of the state population.
Lord, my head hurts. It surely does.
The thing that pisses me off most is that Ohio knows that its juvenile justice poop stinks racially (and stink it does, when the average number of offenses committed by black kids when referred for confinement in DYS is 3 and for white kids it's nearly double that (5), yet Black kids are STILL more likely to be confined in DYS, despite committing offenses of equal severity to white kids) and yet they still have folks persisting on what is acknowledged to be racially disproportionate juvenile justice in towns like Greenwater, Ohio overreaching beyond belief over what is clear to anyone with 1/2 a brain was a tragic, horrific, life-altering ACCIDENT. An accident that had this child not been black, I am confident would never resulted in a murder charge.
Maybe Ohio is trying to send some love to Jena?