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but my guess is that somewhere in time they have been victims themselves.

Or maybe they're just bad seeds. Ten and Eleven year olds are quite capable of knowing that sodomizing five year olds is WRONG. They are capable of making that choice. I am tired of the cult of victimology.

I have a former client who is slated for death by lethal injection in January. He is/was not a victim. The three helpless people he murdered were the victims.

I agree that your client is not a victim. I also agree that these boys are old enough to know right from wrong. My question would be are they old enough to understand the consequences of their actions?

I am sorry, but I don't fall into the thinking line of holding children responsible as adults when they commit a crime. Especially not 10 and 11 year old children. I also do not believe that long term juvenile incarceration is the answer for a child this young either. The mentality here seems to be "hang them" whenever a child does wrong and I cannot go along with that. A 10 or 11 year old child does not function as an adult ( mentally or socially ).

I also do not believe that children are born as "bad seeds". I may be a minority with this opinion but nevertheless it is my opinion. I have a child that is 11 years old and one getting ready to be 10. I can't imagine one of them thinking of doing something so awful nor can I fathom them ever being "locked away" for a long time. When an adult commits a crime ( like this or any other ) they do so knowing that they are forfeiting their life to the prison system. They do so knowing that they are breaking the law. I do not belive that a child does so with this understanding.