Who’s to Say That 14 Is No Longer the Age of Innocence?

You can see them there most any day, youngsters hanging around the lobby, acting like they’re at the mall waiting for the movie to start. A mother or father, or both, are usually with them, and what might strike you is how unworried many of them seem to be. You’d think they’d at least be biting their fingernails: After all, this is Juvenile Court, and they’re waiting to see the judge.

At times like that, and that’s without even knowing what they’re there for as they wait to get to the check-in desk, it’s hard to sympathize with the ones who are wisecracking. Sure, maybe they’re posing to mask their concern, but they still seem a bit too cocky considering the circumstances. You sort of hope the judge teaches them a lesson.

Then you pick up the paper and read where the governor of California says he’d be willing to consider changing the law to allow executions for teens as young as 14. A day later, the state Assembly speaker says he’d consider it too.

All of a sudden, you see those kids in juvie court in a whole new light.

Executing a 14-year-old? That’s the direction Pete Wilson and Cruz Bustamante want to take us?

I’m trying to conjure up the worst crime I can think of, as well as the most vile 14-year-old I can think of. Even putting the two together in my mind, I can’t imagine asking a jury that the kid should be killed.

I suppose some prosecutors could do it, convincing themselves that the kid is incorrigible and irretrievable. They’d have no way of knowing that, of course, but they could say it. I’ll also bet you a hundred bucks, though, that you’d find a lot of prosecutors who could never ask a judge or jury to do it.

The argument is that today’s young teens are somehow “older” than those of yesteryear. They’re growing up faster, they’re more violent, they’re as hardened at 14 as they used to be at 20.

That’s not a rationale; it’s a retreat. It’s giving up on trying to salvage a life, just because it would be easier to throw the switch and end it. It would be easier to throw the switch or drop the pellet and watch the 14-year-old lurch or writhe until he died, but is that what we want as a society?

Julian Bailey has met hundreds of the kind of kids who assemble at Juvenile Court, awaiting their time before the judge. As a defense attorney for 19 years, mostly representing juvenile offenders, he’s talked to petty thieves as well as several killers.

The current talk of reducing the age of execution, he says, merely continues the movement toward stiffer punishments for violent offenders, juvenile or adult.

“I can understand people’s feelings about it, but I cannot accept it as a legitimate social remedy for the actions of 14-year-old boys and girls. And I don’t care who they are, how mature they are physically, they’re still a child. It has always been recognized that the mental state of the perpetrator is part and parcel of any criminal conduct. The mental state that exists in a child is significantly different than that which exists for adults.”

Bailey doesn’t subscribe to the idea that today’s youths are more inherently evil or violent. Rather, he said, they’re the complex products of a society that routinely portrays violence on TV or movies and, in real life, makes guns and other weapons readily accessible to troubled youngsters.

Bailey says he’s not apologizing for the violence they perpetrate nor suggesting they not be punished severely for it, but notes, “They’ve grown up in a world where they watch cartoons or watch Clint Eastwood blow people away. Nothing but action. Children look for fun and immediate gratification, and they’ve never been given a value structure, they’ve simply grown up on the streets. The reality is that there are kids like that out there, but to say they should be executed is a surrender of values on the part of society.”

What’s so magical about 14? What if, in another 20 years, 10-year-olds are committing murder? Kill them too?

I asked Bailey what he typically hears from his youthful clients.

“I see a real lack of understanding of what the consequences of their behavior are,” he says. “They’re either so immune to pain and therefore can’t understand what inflicting it on other people is like, or they have such minimal or nonexistent understanding of the world around them that they can’t reflect on the consequences.”

Exactly, the string-’em-up crowd would argue. They’re hopeless cases who will kill again. Better to take the guesswork out of their punishment.

I’m not arguing that juvenile killers automatically be released from confinement, even at age 25. Maybe some never deserve to be free in society.

Bailey thinks it’s a legitimate possibility that the Legislature could pass a bill permitting the execution of 14-year-olds.

Appalling. In fact, it’s a close call in my mind which is worse: living in a time and place where 14-year-olds kill, or in a time and place where the state would kill 14-year-olds.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.