A Boy Caught in a Legal Travesty

A Florida judge’s outrageous decision last week to sentence a 14-year-old to life in prison without parole for the murder of a 6-year-old playmate is but the last act in a train wreck of justice system failures in this wrenching case.

In January a Miami jury convicted Lionel Tate of first-degree murder in the horrific beating death of Tiffany Eunick. Lionel was just 12 years old at the time of the 1999 murder, and despite his adult size--he then weighed 166 pounds--he was a child with juvenile impulses and boyish fantasies. The boy was obsessed with professional wrestling, and he later claimed he was just imitating his television idols when he threw and punched the girl.

Tiffany’s death, while senseless and preventable, was an accident, defense attorneys claimed. Prosecutors argued it was murder, and even the defense medical experts who testified agreed that the gruesome injuries to the 48-pound girl--more than 30 of them, including a skull fracture, internal hemorrhaging and liver lacerations--were anything but the results of horseplay. The jury came to the same conclusion, and on Friday the judge threw the book at Lionel, imposing the maximum penalty allowable in the case. The judge went as far as lambasting both the defense attorney and the prosecutor, who had each sensibly argued against life imprisonment for the teenager.

The case should stand out as the inevitable, shameful consequence of bad law begetting bad lawyering, of a judge who clearly lost his way, of one tragedy giving rise to others.

Florida is one of about 40 states, including California, that lets prosecutors try juveniles as adults for some violent crimes. And in Florida, as elsewhere, lawmakers have handed prosecutors much more discretion in recent years to make decisions that constrain the choices juries and judges can make later about culpability and punishment.

So a 12-year-old Lionel Tate was indicted for first-degree murder despite psychological evidence that children don’t have the maturity to control their impulses or understand the consequences of their actions. Add to that, defense lawyers served their client poorly. Before Lionel’s trial, his mother rejected several offers to have her son plead guilty to second-degree murder and receive a sentence of three years in a juvenile facility and 10 years of probation. Little wonder, then, that some jurors, after sifting the overwhelming evidence of Lionel’s violent behavior, said they felt legally bound not to return a conviction on a lesser charge. Finally, throw in a judge who angrily rejected dozens of entreaties for leniency.

There’s a long line of Lionel Tates to come. Another 14-year-old Florida boy, Nathaniel Brazil, is scheduled to be tried as an adult on a first-degree murder charge next month. And last week Charles Andrew Williams, 15, was in court to face murder charges in the shooting rampage at Santana High School in Santee, Calif. Although prosecutors have ruled out the death penalty, Williams, if tried as an adult under California’s Proposition 21, could be sentenced to life in prison.

Tiffany Eunick’s awful murder cannot be undone, but the destruction of another child’s life can be prevented. Gov. Jeb Bush should commute the life sentence to a punishment more appropriate for a child gone wrong.