josepp: Unlike many here, I do see where you are coming from. I share your indignation at the excessive leniency that has been shown to those unspeakable young people and your rage that they should have been shown more consideration by society (and for that matter by some posters on this thread) than their victim or his family.

I nevertheless remain convinced that your proposed solution would go too far in the other direction, in both its excessive severity and its impracticality.

I repeat that, tho I am not implacably opposed to capital punishment in any conceivable situation, I consider it would have to be used with utmost circumspection and care; and that 10-yr-olds could not in any circumstances be considered liable to it ~ either forthwith or after a measured delay. I repeat that the fitting penalty in this unhappy case would have been something on the lines of their being held for their entire lives in highly disciplined, tho not inhumane, confinement ~~ as I said before, permanently held in conditions not unlike being permanently under armed services basic training ~~ & never to be allowed any hope of being released, whatever progress they may appear to make personality-wise or contrition they might express.

And the expense of all this would have to be met by society as part of its responsibilities to all its citizens, even those who have placed themselves beyond its zone of acceptability at too early an age to pay the ultimate penalty.

~Michael~