For immediate release
December 11, 1997
NPR Examines Childhood on Trial
Stunning Look at the Effects of Trying Young Offenders as Adults
On Monday, December 15 and Tuesday, December 16, NPR's® ALL
THINGS CONSIDERED® explores the national trend toward trying violent
juvenile offenders as adults. In a two-part series, host Robert Siegel
reports from Milwaukee, Wisconsin where last year a new Code of Juvenile
Justice took effect, mandating that homicide defendants over the age of
10 be tried in the adult system. Produced by Margaret Low Smith, the
series tells the stories of two teenage murder defendants, including
interviews with them.
On Monday, December 15, in the only interview she has granted, listeners
meet Latasha Armstead, who is 14-years-old, pregnant, and charged with
First Degree Intentional Homicide for the slaying of her grandmother's
visiting nurse, Charlotte Brown. Siegel reports in horrifying detail the
murder Armstead is charged with committing at age 13. The homicide
detective who took her statement says that, given the cruelty of the
crime, the teenager deserves to be sentenced to life in prison without
parole. The daughter of a drug-addicted mother, and a father who is
prison, Latasha was barely out of sixth grade at the time of the offense.
In supporting the decision to try her as an adult, the Milwaukee County
District Attorney cites as one argument her "spousal relationship" with a
17-year-old boyfriend who has already been convicted for his role in the
killing. Armstead's lawyer, Robin Shellow protests that the "spousal
relationship" of a 13-year-old is defined under the law as statutory rape
because 13-year-olds are developmentally incapable of entering into a
voluntary conjugal relationship. Such are the conflicts in reconciling
adult standards of trial and punishment with the cases of defendants who
are too young to legally smoke, drive, or drink.
On Tuesday, December 16 Siegel reports on the case and trial of Jeremy
Armstrong, another of Shellow's teenage clients charged with homicide.
Armstrong was 15-years-old at the time of the offense with which he was
charged. A straight-A student at an inner city Catholic high school,
Armstrong is the son of drug addicts. Because he was tried as an adult,
he faces the possibility of spending decades in prison, in the same
institutions as adult offenders. Were they tried or sentenced as
juveniles, Jeremy Armstrong and Latasha Armstead would be assured of
their freedom by the age of 25.
"These are two tough cases that raise an important question: Can we still
think of murderously violent young offenders as children?", says Siegel.
"Both kids came out of unspeakably awful households. Are they accountable
for their crimes in the same way that an adult is? As always, grand
questions of social policy are tougher to answer when they come attached
to the real stories of real
people."
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