Posted in ct legal news, ct state law, whaaaa?
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At least in fair Norwich, CT, as this story leads me to believe. I can only imagine how this scene unfolded. Cops arrive at the scene of a fire. A building is destroyed, 14 people (including 7 children) are now homeless.
They arrest and charge the offender….who happens to be eight years old. That’s right. They arrested an 8-year old for recklessly starting a fire.
Not only that, they charged her with a felony. Now, this kid is either the devil incarnate or the whole damn thing was an accident.
The charge is Arson in the third degree, which states:
(a) A person is guilty of arson in the third degree when he recklessly causes destruction or damage to a building, as defined in section 53a-100, of his own or of another by intentionally starting a fire or causing an explosion.
Did the child’s acts fit the statute? Perhaps. Is it a crime? I really, really, really doubt it. However, since “accident” seems to have disappeared from the dictionary, this poor girl has been arrested at the age of eight, charged with a felony and will probably have some trauma from this.
Do we always have to assign blame for loss or damage? Have we become so focused on criminalization that we cannot see we are compounding these people’s misery? What is the point of this arrest? You’re going to send an eight-year old to jail? You’re going to ask her to complete probation or community service?
Reckless or not, I doubt she knows what the hell she’s doing or did.
It’s not like the Norwich police don’t have anything to do. Note that this is a Class C felony, which carries a maximum term of 10 years.
This led me to wonder: What sort of movie would The Problem Child be today? Then I realized it wouldn’t be a movie. It would be a Law and Order episode.
(Side note: Who is Law and who is Order in L A& O?)
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I can think of a lot of curse words to describe this nonsense, but Gid, I think you hit the nail right on the head. Since when did the word, “accident” disappear from the English language? I don’t think I want to live in a society where an 8 year old kid playing with matches or whatever is subject to the full panoply of the criminal law. And let’s not forget about the emasculation of the kid’s parents. What, are they supposed to sit and take this sitting down? How would I answer the question, “Daddy, why did you let them do that to me?” Not something I care to think about. Accidents happen. That’s life. And I cannot imagine myself thinking any different if my own child died at the hand of such an accident. Prosecuting 8 year olds for “reckless” behavior is an exercise in stupidity. There’s no way, simply on the basis of the fact that the kid was playing with matches and it got out of hand, to determine whether this kid is someone in need of intervention or just the one that got hit by lightning, so to speak. That, coupled with the obvious harm here, makes this about as cruel an act as I can imagine.
Sorry for the rant. This just pisses me off.
Well, I still hold out hope that the prosecutor’s office will not prosecute.
Welcome to the world of Juvenile Justice in Connecticut!! We don’t have an infancy statute, so we pretty much rely on the competency statute to screen out the wee nippers that show up in the system.
I once represented a 5 year old accused of Reckless Burning. (He set fire to his own hair…which was pretty reckless, ya gotta admit
At the arraignment the judge asked him to stand. He was already standing, so I asked the judge if he would like me to pick him up so the judge could see him better. The humor/irony of it all was lost of the judge who then engaged in a discussion of what Santa might be bringing the kid for Christmas. AAAAGH.
The maximum by the way is an 18 month commitment to DCF with the possibility of re-commitment. Not that makes it any better mind you.
So the two options are a nolle (heh) or commitment to DCF?
What are the chances this will actually be prosecuted?
Hey Gid, can you, if you can, post updates to this. I’m sure you’ll hear some things that won’t be widely reported.