The article leaves out some facts. While Fennell’s participation in the attack (at the age of 17) was sufficient to convict him for murder, regardless of who ultimately delivered the killing blow, the jury may not have convicted him for murder (or a judge may have later commuted his sentence) had he testified against the man who directly killed the victim: https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=19706704&fcfTo.... He refused to testify even though he provided a statement to the police at the time of his arrest stating who had performed the stabbing.
My beef with articles like this one is not that I think a 17 year old should get life in prison for a stabbing. I think nobody should. Our murder laws produce sentences vastly longer than Europe, where 15-20 years is a typical maximum sentence for murder, and longer sentences are reserved for people who are active threats.
Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.
The article directly addresses the idea that "Being 17...doesn't make you less culpable."
"Of just over 200 released, six have faced new charges, but only one has been convicted of a new crime, contempt. That’s less than a 3 percent recidivism rate. “When you’re looking at the percentages of the guys who’ve come back in court, and compare that to our overall, which is around 40 percent, you really know you’ve done a good job,” Johnson said.
That outcome supports a theory the U.S. Supreme Court first advanced in 2005, when it outlawed the death penalty for juveniles. The Court took stock of “evolving standards of decency,” as well as a growing body of neuroscience suggesting kids’ immaturity makes them less culpable than adults. It also emphasized that kids, more than adults, are amenable to change. The low recidivism rates likely also reflect the reality that criminal behavior declines dramatically as people age out of their teens and early 20s."
There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now - I imagine this is a trend that will continue to likely progress for me individually, and I also imagine this isn't a phenomenon singular to myself.
The shockingly low recidivism rate seems to empirically support this notion as well, particularly when contrasted with the general recidivism rate. If these juvenile offenders were just as culpable as anyone else when they had committed their life sentence crimes, presumably their recidivism rate should be similar. 40 percent for the general population and 3 percent for this cohort so far suggests otherwise.
>There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now
Yes, I too made very stupid choices in my younger days, which could have killed me many times over. I have not however, done things that could have hurt/killed others. That doesn't make me a saint, it just means I understand the value of human life and that I have no right to jeopardize the lives of others.
These 'kids' took it upon themselves to rob a person while armed, and stab him to death. This person, named Joseph Hayes, had his life forfeit for no doing of his own, his family and friends having him removed from their lives in a most brutal way.
I think the penalty should fit the crime, if you attack and kill someone unprovoked, I don't care if you are 17 years old, or if you were in a group. Your lack of regard for other human life means you should be locked away, both in order to keep people safe from you as well as a strong deterrent. Haywood Fennell is not a victim, the person he and a group of his friends decided to rob and kill is the victim.
>Haywood Fennell is not a victim, the person he and a group of his friends decided to rob and kill is the victim.
"Fennell was the only one convicted in the incident."
An African American 17 year old in 1968 talking to police without a lawyer ... While the crime definitely should have been punished, it sounds kind of questionable whether the justice was served here.
> Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.
Welcome to moral systems, like the law. None of them make much sense at all (even though they're necessary), but laws are particularly bad. Laws + governments saving money are a recipe for total disaster.
But mostly the poor and socially weak are victimized so nobody cares. And of course, whether it's a third world dictatorship or a modern "european democracy" as if that's an ideal: the state protects it's own enforcers. Even when they shoot a slowly moving van that refused to stop for border patrol, then refuse to bring a 2 year old they shot that was dying to the hospital for 20 minutes, their parents in chains (totally not to avoid responsibility, not at all), and then when the child went unresponsive, tried to free everyone they arrested (again, this had totally nothing to do with attempting to avoid responsibility) ...
when an offender kills (regardless of intent to kill) in the commission of a [felony], the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder.
Is this common in western countries, or one of those "only in the US and/or some third world country" things, like the "three-strikes" and the "death penalty" (even for juveniles) laws?
In this case, Mr Fennell watched a man get attacked, did nothing to help the man and even actively participated in the attack, and when the man died, Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify. I don't think it's a stretch, ethically or legally, to assign him significant blame for the killing, especially since his refusal to testify deprived his victims of any further justice.
That doesn't mean I agree with the life sentence (I absolutely do not), but twenty-five years doesn't seem wildly disproportionate to me.
Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify.
Do you have any evidence for this, or are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive? Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent.
> are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive?
Who gives a shit what his motivation was? The legal system sure doesn't. The effect of his refusal to testify was that the killer could not be brought to justice. His participation in the attack and his refusal to cooperate after the man's death makes him morally and legally culpable in that death. This is not controversial in any modern legal jurisdiction that I'm aware of.
> Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent.
You appear to be confusing this issue with our Fifth Amendment indemnity against self-incrimination. Mr. Fennell was not examined as a witness, but rather as a defendant. If you refuse to testify against an accomplice, and you expect to be somehow protected from a charge of accessory-after-the-fact, you're in for a rude surprise.
The felony murder rule comes from British common law. While it’s been abolished in the UK, Canada, and parts of Australia. But civil law jurisdictions have statutory crimes that achieve the same effect. For example, in Germany this crime probably could’ve been prosecuted as “robbery with deadly outcome,” which can carry life imprisonment.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say all participants in a crime that leads to a murder, even if the participant didn't personally kill someone, are equally guilty.
Obviously there is a question of proximity, but under Fennell's (presumably charitable) telling of events, he assaulted a man then returned with a co-conspirator; when the victim attempted to defend himself, Fennell threw a bottle at him and watched as his co-conspirator repeatedly stabbed the victim. Fennell then refused to help identify the co-conspirator.
>I don't think it's unreasonable to say all participants in a crime that leads to a murder, even if the participant didn't personally kill someone, are equally guilty.
I do. A murder verdict requires action, effect, and malice. How can you prove murderous intent if the defendant didn't personally deliver a lethal blow? His actions might not have intended death. We punish different degrees of homicide differently because they presume differing threats to society.
>I don't think it's unreasonable to say all participants in a crime that leads to a murder, even if the participant didn't personally kill someone, are equally guilty.
You don't? To me it sounds like the epitome of legal absurdity.
So, if 3 teenagers decided to steal a car and have a joyride (sure, a stupid and criminal decision, but tons have done it with nobody being hurt), and while trying to do so, the owner comes, and one of the teenagers kills him in the altercation, that means all 3 are "equally guilty"?
There are different felony murder rules in different jurisdictions, so you'll have to be specific about the rule you're taking issue with. In California, the rule applies only to participants in the actual killing, unless the victim was a police officer. In Illinois, any killing that results from the commission of a violent ("forcible") crime is attributable to all the participants of the crime, on the theory that the criminals could have foreseen that their crime would ultimately require them to kill someone, and went ahead and did it anyways. New York has an expansive felony murder rule, but also an affirmative defense that covers the case you described: if you didn't shoot anyone and didn't know your accomplices were armed, you might not be liable.
>There are different felony murder rules in different jurisdictions, so you'll have to be specific about the rule you're taking issue with.
I'm taking issue with the "equally guilty" the grandparent mentioned - so whatever jurisdiction does that.
I didn't start complaining about some specific jurisdiction, but about the general idea (as mentioned in the grandparent comment) that there are laws that deem people in such cases "equally guilty".
In fact, even the "tamer" California example you gave is already what I characterized as an absurdity (as all 3 kids in my example would be "participants in the actual killing", even though only one did the actual killing - and the others might never had done it or had time to prevent it, they just wanted to commit the initial act (e.g. the joyride).
The Illinois example takes it to even further levels of absurdity, if "is attributable to all the participants of the crime" (so e.g. even someone who gave them the details of the car to steal for the joyride, but wasn't even present in the murder. "on the theory that the criminals could have foreseen that their crime would ultimately require them to kill someone" -- is some "butterfly effect" level legal conception for such cases...
Yes. They chose to commit a crime and then an assault while armed. What you're trying to whitewash isn't joyriding, it's carjacking.
Even for the two that didn't pull the trigger, they could easily foresee the actions they participated in killing someone. If they don't like it, people should refrain from participating in carjacking. And if a member of your criminal group is an idiot liable to hurt someone, you should choose not to commit crimes with that person.
But you can see in your example if one of the teenagers holds the man down and another one stabs him that maybe they both killed him, even if only one of them used the knife?
>But you can see in your example if one of the teenagers holds the man down and another one stabs him that maybe they both killed him, even if only one of them used the knife?
Of course, that would be understandable. And I don't think that would need the "joint enterprise" construct to be tried as both being murderers in most legal systems.
The unjust concern is for the people who weren't such active participants in the act of murder (or called for it), but just on the "initial" crime.
Highly dependent upon context, I suppose. If you came forward to break an otherwise improbable or cold case, I could imagine that would warrant consideration.
Of course someone could sing to save their skin, and in doing so lie.
It’s a balance of incentives, I suppose? This is why we have a human system of law, not an algorithm.
This I corollary to the plea bargaining system in the US (make a confession in exchange for a lighter sentence than you'd get if you went to trial) which is illegal and considered a human rights violation in most other countries.
You conveniently glance over a key paragraph as well.
> According to later testimony from one of those officers, Fennell sat with him, and no lawyer, for about an hour that morning before agreeing to make a statement about the night in question. Fennell later testified that the officer told him that if he made a statement, he would not get more than a year in jail. He felt pressured and scared. “Nobody there was my color, nobody my age—all cops,” he said later. “They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system.”
Why is this a key paragraph? What the cop told him was bullshit, but that's not illegal.
All I see here is that Mr. Fennell was briefly questioned by police, and gave a statement that appears to have been largely or entirely accurate. It seems he hasn't significantly recanted any of it to this day, except possibly to add some uncertainty to his recollection of a murder weapon.
When he laments that "They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system", is he saying that if only he'd lawyered up then maybe he could have beaten the felony murder rap? Even though he plainly admits to assaulting the man and watching while someone else possibly stabbed him to death? We're supposed to be sympathetic to that?
> Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.
Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them.
Normal societies are set up to deal with that or prevent it.
Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability.
No they don't. Every human being is an effing idiot when it comes to group dynamics and you never know when a simple brawl or mugging turns into murder.
First of all, if we are talking law and regulations: You don't know all of them and they are constantly shifting. And let's not get into the details of local legislation whether you live in a union of 50 or like me 28 states.
Secondly morals, those are learned first through your family then friends, school, maybe a religious community and later on experience as you master your life on your own. Or rather you learn from your mistakes or the mistakes others make.
The Supreme Court was right to disallow life prison for minors and your 18th birthday shouldn't be the hard limit for that.
Are you really trying to claim a 17 year old doesn’t know murder and robbery are illegal, much less wrong?
I’m not saying anyone should necessarily go to prison forever, but any 17 year old of normal to somewhat below normal intelligence knows murder and robbery are both wrong and illegal.
I sometimes think when we're all bitching about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket (which it is, on many dimensions - maybe not in the aggregate as people like Steven Pinker argue, depending on how you "measure" that, but I think it's fair to say we could do much better), typically because of the foolish behavior of one "stupid" group or another, do we maybe underestimate the significance of how differently each of us perceive and conceptualize the world?
>> Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.
> Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them.
Both of these seem arguably "true" to me.
> Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability.
This seems arguably "true" as well. But then, what does the word "knows" mean in this context, precisely? For example, we all "know" we should be kind to others, and clean up our acts in general, but when your life falls apart as a consequence of not acting in the way you know you should have, does "know" have the same meaning as it did before? We use the same word for both situations, but is the meaning the same?
> especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them
There are all sorts of complications in life that we kind of just take for granted because our mind processes them subconsciously. If society has "abandoned" people, and they subsequently use that as a parameter ("excuse") during (conscious + subconscious) judgement of what to do in certain future situations, whose fault is that, and why? Shall we deal with reality as it "should" be, or as it is?
Another example is laws. Should we follow the law? Well of course. But then, are all laws just? Are all people equally/fairly impacted by our vast collection of laws? Are all laws enforced fairly? Are all people equally able to defend themselves? Should these and other questions have any bearing on how we organize our societies and planet, or how we judge others when they've "clearly" gone astray?
The world is an infinitely complex place, and each individual is infinitely complex in their own right. Different people, or even the same person, will often react in completely opposite ways under seemingly identical inputs. We all can clearly see this sort of thing when we're discussing the phenomenon in a philosophical context, but how well do we remember it when we're dealing with an incident in the heat of the moment?
How should people behave? How, precisely, do we even determine what is right and wrong, under various circumstances? Sure, we can write all sorts of complex legal regulations, but how do we know they're right? What does that word even mean in this context? Is everything a matter of fact, or are some things matters of opinion?
I believe until we start to get serious widespread appreciation of these complexities (which are rapidly grower larger every day in our hyper-connected and globalized world), and start to put as much effort into studying and mastering the soft sciences as we've done with the hard, we will continue to stumble around like overconfident but naive children until the complexity we've built (while spending no time learning how to wield it wisely) starts to collapse upon us.
> You see, I have had in my life a number of pleasant experiences. One of the earliest ones was when I was a kid I invented a problem for myself, the sum of the powers of the integers, and in trying to get the formula for it I developed a certain set of numbers, the formula for which I couldn’t get, and I discovered later that those were known as the Bernoulli numbers and discovered in 1739. So I was up to 1739 when I was about 14 you see. And then a little later I discovered something that I’d find out I just may have invented a thing which we now call operator calculus. That was invented in 1890-something. Gradually I was inventing things that came later and later.
> But the moment when I began to realize that I was now working on something new was when I read about quantum electrodynamics at the time and I read a book, and I learned about it. For example, I read Dirac’s book, and he had these problems that nobody knew how to solve that were described there. I couldn’t understand the book very well because I really wasn’t up to it. But there in the last paragraph at the end of the book it said, “Some new ideas are here needed.” And so there I was. Some new ideas were needed? OK! So I started to think of new ideas.
Hundreds of thousands of scientists and technical people have been thinking (and collaborating) really hard for centuries, and marvel at what they've built! Do we have anything remotely comparable in the social sciences, which is arguably a much harder problem space? Where would we even look for new ideas?
I think at least part of the answer lies within the ideas of people who are often considered the oddballs of society. I like this video of Terence McKenna interpreting Plato's ideas:
> How can you tell one theory from another, and is science better than religion and this and that? After a lot of arm waving it should be conceded that the final call is aesthetic. That, because we are monkeys, because we are so far from God, we cannot set knowing the truth as the standard for choosing among the models we can produce. We must set our aesthetic compass towards the more true. What Wittgenstein called the true enough. And then the question is well how do you how do you recognize that? Well, this is a rich field of human study called philosophy of science, or theory, epistemology, and ontology. How do we know what is real?
> But Plato, who all the rest of philosophy is a footnote upon, Plato said that the key lay in the concepts the good, the true and the beautiful. The good, what is it? Tricky, tricky, tricky... The true, what is it? Trickier, even trickier... The beautiful, what is it? Easy to discern! The beautiful is easy to discern. You are going to be condemned to live out the consequences of your taste, really, really, and if you have no taste, you know, God help you! Because you are you are self condemned to an appalling nightmare. You won't be getting it, all the subtle stuff will go by you, while your head is filled with Kant, nonsense, foolishness. So again, the the metaphor of the dream and of making choices based on beauty and beauty is downloaded into the human cultural milieu largely through dreams. So that's the way to set the compass, not toward truth, not toward the good, not because these aren't fine things, but because they're so slippery.....but toward beauty, and with that in place, to my mind, life hope follows as a natural consequence.
Spiritual jibber jabber and woo woo as a result of excessive drug consumption? Sure, at least somewhat. But what if it is also simultaneously true, at least to some degree, but as a result of mankind's hubris (also a powerful drug), no one bothers to take a serious look into it? It would be kind of cosmically hilarious if the answer was right in front of us, but we were too stubborn to look.
In recent news, gangs of youths have attacked people and killed some.
Sad to say, but locking these people up until they're old may be the best answer. (Maybe the death penalty would be better?) The wrong thing to do is to turn them loose back into society when they have a decent chance of hurting someone else.
I would agree more if this didn’t sound like a ‘boys will be boys’ defence.
If you want to fix society you also have to leave that kind of belief in the past.
In this case, the guy is also black. The article avoids the racial aspect and focusses on other circumstances, but American society has never been favourable to black folk.
It's a biological fact that's recognized in our having a separate system for juvenile and adult defendants. We can't leave it behind, it would be cruel and unusual.
That’s more like kids being kids. Boys will be boys is a heavier loaded version and is often used by parents and adults to excuse bad behaviour (or bad parenting).
My beef with articles like this one is not that I think a 17 year old should get life in prison for a stabbing. I think nobody should. Our murder laws produce sentences vastly longer than Europe, where 15-20 years is a typical maximum sentence for murder, and longer sentences are reserved for people who are active threats.
Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.