“How Young Is Too Young to Face Life in Prison?”

The title of this post is the headline of this new effective piece from ABC News and Good Morning America.  Here is how it starts:

The father of a 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy charged last year with murder says his son is “just an all-around good kid” who doesn’t deserve to face life in prison.

A judge will soon decide whether or not Jordan Brown should be tried as an adult for the murder of his soon-to-be stepmother, and face a possible life sentence. The case is at the crux of a national debate on juvenile justice, playing out in a small-town courthouse.

Before his arrest, Jordan was the quarterback of the Pee Wee football team and a good student. His dad says he was “big into sports” with “a lot of friends in school.”

But on Feb. 20, 2009, his father’s fiancée, Kenzie Houk, 26, was found dead, shot in the head in the family’s rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania. She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time.

Prosecutors quickly built a case against Jordan, then 11, accusing him of using his shotgun — a hunting gift from his dad — to fire one fatal bullet before getting on the bus for elementary school. Within 24 hours, the fifth-grader was arrested for murder. When Chris Brown saw his son being taken away by police, the boy was “scared, frightened, [and] crying.”

“Jordan’s never been away from me for any length of time since he was born,” he recalled thinking. “He was terrified, terrified.” Brown said his son “looked like a baby” when he was incarcerated. “He looked like a baby in an orange jumpsuit in an adult jail.”

Brown continues to proclaim his son’s innocence. But the family of Houk has reportedly described Jordan as angry and profoundly jealous of the fact that the new woman in his father’s life was about to have a son, to be named Chris after his dad. Jordan was charged with two counts of homicide. Chris Brown believes his son comprehends what he stands accused of, “but he doesn’t appreciate the magnitude of it. He’s simply too young.”

Too young, many argue, to face the prospect of an adult sentence. Kids charged with murder in Pennsylvania are automatically considered adults and only a judge’s decision can move the trial to junvenile court.

If convicted, the two routes have radically different sentences, either life in prison without parole, or juvenile detention and freedom with no record at age 21. Due to tough-on-crime laws, Pennsylvania has more juveniles sentenced to life in prison without parole than any other state.