Boys will be boys.
Some boys that murder get suspended sentences and the other ones who don’t murder, get 65 years in prison for murder.
Here are two tales of interpretive murder in America’s courtrooms.
The first is in Alabama.
Teen Gets Decades In Prison For ‘Murder’ Of Someone Killed By A Cop
A judge on Thursday sentenced an Alabama teenager to 65 years in prison for a series of crimes, including murder, even though a police officer was the one who actually killed the victim.
Lakeith Smith, now 18, was convicted under the state’s accomplice liability law in March. Based on that law, a person can be convicted of murder if they were committing a crime with the deceased that led to the other person’s death, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. In Smith’s case, he was involved in burglaries alongside A’Donte Washington, 16, when a police officer shot and killed Washington in 2015.
Even though a policeman shot and killed 16-year-old A’Donte Washington, and Alabama law interprets that killing as a murder, it will be18-year-old Lakeith Smith who will be in jail until he is 83, as punishment for A’Donte Washington’s death.
“The officer shot A’donte, not Lakeith Smith,” said Smith’s attorney Jennifer Holton during the trial, as per USA Today. “Lakeith was a 15-year-old child, scared to death. He did not participate in the act that caused the death of A’donte. He never shot anybody.”
Though Smith was a minor when the incident took place, he was tried as an adult.
Meanwhile, in Ohio four teenagers who pleaded guilty to murder or manslaughter recently had their sentences suspended, so that they can lead productive lives.
Ohio teens given suspended sentence for dropping sandbag off overpass that killed man
The four teens, all aged 13 or 14, pleaded guilty to either murder or manslaughter. The boy who dropped the sandbag pleaded guilty to murder while the other three pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, the Toledo Blade reported. The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to the Department of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in the Department of Youth Services.
All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center.
"It's a treatment facility, for certain services, to provide so these boys change their behavior and can become productive members of our community," Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon said.
The policeman who committed what Alabama law calls a murder, is free.
The teens who killed and pleaded guilty to murder and manslaughter, are free.
And the only one in the group who did not commit murder, is the only one going to jail for 65 years, for a murder he did not commit.