Lionel Tate Case Summary

On the fateful day of July 28, 1999, six year old Tiffany Eunick was beaten to death by a 6 foot tall and 160 pound Lionel Tate. The autopsy report showed that Tate reportedly stomped on Eunick so hard her liver was lacerated, and the young girl sustained multiple bone fractures so severe that she was pronounced dead at the hospital hours later. Tate was controversially convicted of felony murder and thus sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Now why was this sentence so controversial? Because Lionel Tate was only twelve years old at the time of the murder. How do we determine mental competence of someone whose brain is still developing? How could someone who has not even finished puberty possibly understand the sever implications of such a brutal crime? How can we possibly try a juvenile as an adult when juveniles are proven to have diminished impulse control? This paper will discuss the history of charging juveniles of adults, discuss the issues that make this practice wrong while negating opposing arguments, and explain the various consequences that come with charging juvenile offenders as adults.

The criminal justice system approaches young offenders through unique policies to address the challenges of dealing with juvenile offending. They take special care when dealing with juveniles in order to stop them from repeat offending and stop any potential bad behaviour which could result in future. Juveniles have the highest tendency to rehabilitate and most adopt law-abiding lifestyles as they mature. There are several factors influencing juvenile crime including psychological and social pressures unique to juveniles, which may lead to an increase in juvenile’s risks of contact with the criminal justice system.

There has been an enormous amount of research, going back almost thirty years, about the relationship between childhood trauma, and juvenile delinquency. Many researches cannot say that there is a direct link between the two, but after much research, researches have found that childhood trauma can perhaps be a predictor for juveniles who later in life commit crimes. Trauma is defined as, “a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury,” because the definition is broad and can range from a variety of different events, for the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on neglect trauma in juveniles (Trauma, 2016). Neglect according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is, “the failure of a parent or other person with the responsibility for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision such that the child’s health, safety and well-being are threatened with harm” (Kazemian, 2011).

There have been numerous studies throughout the decades regarding childhood victimization and how it relates to adult criminality. This report will summarize a few of these studies and compare their results in order to attempt to find a correlation between childhood abuse, neglect, or sexual abuse and adult criminals.

Juvenile Delinquents are being incarcerated at earlier ages as time progresses. The term delinquent speaks of two or more youths, typically amongst the ages of ten and seventeen years old, who are involved in doings well-defined as illegal. The study of juvenile delinquents in inner city Chicago have been studied for many years and the rates continue to sky rocket as juveniles are being locked down by the justice system. Cases of violence amongst juveniles has been increasing rapidly in the past 20 years, juveniles are now linked to severer crimes, and it can be speculated that regardless of efforts of rehabilitation that the recidivism of juveniles relapsing is very great. Thus leading to physiological and mental problems that can be damaging to the youth as

If Tate had been tried as a juvenile he would have faced six to nine months in a juvenile facility, but as an adult he would face life without parole. The evidence was presented to the Grand Jury and they returned an indictment for first degree murder. Tate was offered a plea bargain for a guilty plea a few times, but his mother refused to accept it. Tate 's mother didn 't want to plead guilty because she believed her son that it was an accident. During the trial, the Tate 's defense tried to argue that the wrestling Tate watched on TV influenced him. The jury wasn 't convinced that it was an accident, because of the extent of Eunick 's injuries. Tate was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In December 2003 Tate 's conviction was thrown out by an appeals court, because Tate wasn 't given a mental competency evaluation before or during his trial. In January 2004 Tate pled guilty to second degree murder. Tate was released and sentenced to 10 years ' probation, and one year house arrest. Tate didn 't receive any mental health counseling at all. In September 2004 Tate was arrested for possession of a weapon a knife. Tate was sentenced to an additional five years ' probation and was warned that another violation would land him in prison.

In 2003, Terrance Jamar Graham participated in a robbery of a restaurant at the age of 16. On probation for the robbery, Graham pleads guilty in adult court to another robbery and was sentenced to life without parole (Graham v. Florida, 2009). In 1999, at age 13, Lionel Tate beat a 6-year-old girl to death trying to imitate professional wrestling. Tate was tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole (Tate v. Florida, 1999). In 2000, at age 13, Nathaniel Brazil fatally shot his middle school teacher claiming the gun went off accidentally. Brazil was tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole (Brazil v. Colorado, 2000). In 1899, U.S. society continually struggled with rehabilitation versus juvenile accountability. It was

A woman was killed in her home by a baseball that crashed through a window, and the prime suspect is 14 year old Oliver Thomson, who claims it was an accident, a decent alibi yet he is still taken to trial. Now decide if this young man gets sent to prison for life or he is to be set free, what should be done with Oliver? Juveniles should not be convicted as an adult for violent crimes because though they are grown, the brain is fully developed until the 18th birthday and in some cases longer, so in theory they are not able to think for themselves, had a very rough or non-existent childhood, suffered a very traumatizing event earlier in life, and sometimes it is deemed accidental.

Juveniles committing crimes in our society have significantly soared over the years and as a result, they are being charged as adults. Specifically, youth ages ranging from 14-17 are increasingly engaging in criminal activity. They are committing various unlawful acts such as murder, carjacking, armed robbery, conspiracy, and drug offenses. Some juveniles are indulging in crimes because they want to see if they can get away with the act, others feel a sense of comfort and being untouchable due to their young age. Many juveniles will continue bad acts of crime as long as they do not get caught. They will continue disruptive behaviors against people, places, and things until faced with severe punishment by the law. The offenses juveniles face with being

There is a moderate portion of juvenile law violations that are minor; however some young offenders are extremely dangerous and violent. (Caldwell, 2002) Studies have shown that most delinquent behavior stems from some sort of underlining issue or issues in a youth’s present or past history. State and county authorities must deal with these offenders while also responding to their personal social problems. This could range from child abuse and neglect, family issues and drug abuse, exposure to pornography and exposure to aggressive role models.

In the United States, juvenile delinquency is becoming a major problem in the communities across the country. Because of the actions that these juveniles engage in on a regular basis, taxpayers across the country are having to shell out hundreds upon thousands of dollars to rehabilitate these children in order to help them make better choices. This leads citizens to wonder what factors actually cause juveniles to live a life of crime rather than success. In short, there are three main factors that often cause children to live a life of crime. These three factors are social influences, psychological characteristics, and academic potential.

     Some causes for conduct in adolescents are no discipline, unstructured discipline and a broken home. A broken home is one of the factors that can produce a delinquent child. A broken home reduces the opportunity for creating a strong attachment between child and parents and that reduces the parent’s ability to condition the child. Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previous delinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior through interaction with others.

While the theoretical reasoning that supports the idea that child abuse often leads to crime gives a basis for the concept, much of the evidence that links the two lies in the concrete details. The visible effects of child abuse and neglect that assist with the basis that has been given by the psychological theories lies in observable behavioral and emotional effects of those who are known to have been subject to maltreatment as children. Some children who have a history with abuse do not experience any repercussions while others experience extreme consequences; this is largely because of the certain child’s ability to handle and grow from negative experiences (Child Welfare Information Gateway 3). Children who experience consequences

Many children become familiar with the Juvenile Justice System without knowledge of why they continue to commit crimes. Many of them suffered years of being abuses, which caused socialization changes that pushed them to withdraw or act out. This research is important because it shows the long terms effects child abuse has on children that become juvenile delinquents. Statistics show increasing numbers of children who are the victims of child abuse and neglect, although they decrease in delinquency may reflect a greater nation focus on the issue and the use of more effective programs to attack the problem. This research is important to me because the Criminal Justice System doesn’t address the causes of deviant behavior in juvenile delinquents to its full potential. They rather just focus on policing and tough sanctions. Hopefully with this paper and many others child abuse can be prevented along with the long-term effects of child abuse and better programs can be invented to treat child abuse victims. The Office of Justice Programs came up with a “Safe Kids Safe Streets” Program, which acknowledge the correlation between child abuse and juvenile delinquency and is aimed at breaking the cycle of early childhood victimization and later delinquency (Safe

Juvenile offending is a major problem in society. Understanding the risk factors that contribute to the increased likelihood of a juvenile to engage in delinquency is important. There are many factors that can influence the increased risk of juvenile delinquency. These factors include poverty, low socioeconomic status, age (Jarjoura, Triplett, & Brinker, 2002), race, gender (Lucero, Barret, & Jensen, 2015), education (Lucero, Barret, & Jensen, 2015; Jarjoura, 1993), and family structure (Anderson, 2002; Kierkus & Hewitt, 2009). It is important to examine if some risk factors can contribute more than others and to what extent they interact with one another. This paper will discuss three important risk factors that contribute to the likelihood of juveniles engaging in deviant acts. The three risk factors discussed are poverty, family structure, and educational attainment. In addition, this paper will demonstrate how these three risk factors interact with one another, resulting in a higher propensity for involvement in juvenile delinquency.