The Christopher Frank Pittman Case: Chester, South Carolina

The first case that I researched was a case from Chester, South Carolina which was the Christopher Frank Pittman case. On November 28, 2001, when he was only 12 years old Christopher F. Pittman murder his grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman while they were asleep in the bed as well as set their house on fire, stole the family truck and fled (muderpedia.org. n.d.). His reason for killing them was because the day before he killed them, his grandfather paddled him after a school bus fight the day before (heraldonline.com. n.d.). At the time of this murder as well as his trial he was South Carolina’s youngest killer. There were a number of people who felt that he should not have been tried as an adult because he was only 12 years old at the time

Now in South Carolina, a child under the age of 17 is automatically tried as a juvenile in Family Court, unless the prosecutor asks a judge to have them tried as an adult. However, South Carolina laws allows a child of any age who’s charged with murder to be tried as an adult but for any other charges they have to be 14 or older in order to be tried as an adult and that is only for serious felony charges. Unfortunately, carrying a weapon onto school property is a charge that allows some 14 years old to be tried as an adult but if they are charged as a minor at 14 the maximum possible sentence is that they be placed in the Department of Juvenile Justice until they are 21 years of age. Although, he is 14 years old he could still be tried as an adult but due to the Supreme Court being in line with the 8th Amendment it would be very difficult for the court to impose a life-without-possibility-of-parole sentence on him because he is only 14-years-old or anyone under the age of 18. Therefore, he is now facing adult charges but the may be moved back to the Juvenile Courts. However, there is another young man one county over from where this crime happened who is 16 years old that is being tried as an adult for sexually assaulting a woman after he forced his way into her home

The reasons for this is that a lot of these kids are committing adult crimes therefore, they should be tried as an adult. Furthermore, if they were not tried as an adult the violence that these kids bring to our society would be an outrage. They would be out here killing kids of their own age as well as adults. There’s also the possibility of them going out doing other dangerous and violent crimes because they would figure that just because of their age they could not be tried as an adult but in fact go to juvenile court where they will have a hearing by just a judge and not be tried by a jury which could possibly give them less time then what the crime carries. Now some people would argue that they are kids but we have to remember that these are kids that are considered super predators which means they are very violent in nature and have committed violent crimes. However, once tried as an adult they could still be placed in a juvenile detention center until they reached the age in order to be transferred to an adult prison and then and only then be placed in an adult prison to carry out the rest of their