Jurisprudence: Teen Terror Charges

MADELEINE BRAND, host:

This is DAY TO DAY. I'm Madeleine Brand.

ALEX CHADWICK, host:

I'm Alex Chadwick.

Writing in the online magazine Slate, legal analyst Dahlia Lit wick notes a trend: state prosecutors turning to anti-terror laws to both charge and punish high-school students who may be plotting mass school attacks like the notorious Columbine incident. Dahlia Lit wick joins us now. Dahlia, tell us about a few of these recent cases, in which high-scholars are either charged or convicted under terror laws.

DAHLIA LIT WICK reporting:

Four teens in New Jersey were charged under terror laws this spring, for a planned lunchtime massacre that would've taken out at least 17 people at Winslow Township High School. Then there were two teens in suburban Missouri who were charged with terroristic threats and other terror-related charges. Again, for a plot that would've taken place at their high school.

Then we have a Michigan teenager who's now facing terrorism charges for having sort of, accumulated bombs and napalm, and blueprints for his high school. Finally, another teenager - also from Michigan - was sentenced in June of this year, to four and a half years in prison.

CHADWICK: Now, you write that this makes sense in some way, because there are sort of similarities that you note between terrorists and these high-school students planning their mass crimes. But still, you don't think this is an especially good idea. What is it about these terrorism laws that make them attractive for Columbine-type prosecutions?

LITHWICK: Well, it's very attractive for prosecutors always, to have sort of stiffer, more draconian sentences. And obviously, whereas these kids would've been charged before under some theory of conspiracy or assault, now they're being charged under these very heavy-duty terror laws. And those bring with them heavier penalties. You can be quickly tried as an adult and punished as an adult. It makes these kids more inclined to sort of, roll over on each other and to make deals.

CHADWICK: And you note that there actually are some remarkable parallels between fundamentalist suicide bombers and teen killers.

LITHWICK: That was the most interesting part of this article, Alex. I set out to sort of say no way should these kids be tried as terrorists - they're not. But when you start to sort of look at the psychology, there are some amazing analogies. For one thing, these kids follow Islamic fundamentalists to suicide bombers, in that they tend to follow very precise models of what came before.

There was a Secret Service study that came out that looked at all these teen shooters in the late 1990s. You had kids who were very depressed, who were in fact suicidal - deep, deep feelings of oppression, of persecution, and a feeling of despair - that they couldn't get out of this victimization.

Where I don't think they should be punished the same, I think it's instructive to look at the similarities between them.

CHADWICK: When you see those similarities, why is it that you conclude this is a real mistake for these laws?

LITHWICK: These terror laws are very punitive. They're aimed at something like a Timothy McVeigh. They are not aimed at teenagers. In some sense, it really devalues the notion of terrorism, to start charging kids who have grandiose ideas, who want to kill someone in the cafeteria.

CHADWICK: So what is the lesson here, for a prosecutor who's thinking about one of these kids - because the circumstances that you do write about seem quite dramatic. A planned attack on 17 kids in a high school, that's big.

LITHWICK: It's huge, and you know, a lethal attack is a lethal attack - whether you're going after the World Trade Center or your high school cafeteria. But I am saying that there's a way to look at these cases and say my goodness, the similarities are striking - if we can do something to alleviate the bullying; the isolation; the victimization; the feeling that there's nowhere left to turn but to start taking people out. I think as a policy matter, some of those things might actually work in the war on terror as well.

CHADWICK: Opinion and analysis from Dahlia Lithwick, Slate and DAY TO DAY legal analyst. Dahlia, thank you.

LITHWICK: Always a pleasure.

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