Yesterday I was reading a news article about a 10 year old girl who killed her baby brother. The girl was charged as an adult with first-degree homicide (Source). I don't know how a 10 year old can be charged as an adult when she is not one. But I want to know how long can she be sentenced for?
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1 Answer
The girl is charged with first-degree intentional homicide as an adult. The appropriate statute is Wisconsin 940.1. The punishment for that is life in prison, as Wisconsin does not have the death penalty.
In Wisconsin, those accused of first degree intentional homicide are automatically referred to adult court if they are 10 years old or greater. This does not mean that the person will be tried in adult court, and in this particular case it is more likely that this will be remanded to juvenile court for trial.
The girl in the question is not the sister of the deceased child. The girl is a foster child in a family that does at-home daycare. The victim in this case is one of the children that was attending the daycare.
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What's the point of having separate juvenile and adult courts if juveniles can just be shoved up into the adult courts?– VikkiSep 11, 2021 at 22:49