Brian Vaughn: A Student-Athlete Kills

A Murdered Dad, a Broken Teen
(“Shattered Innocence,” Forensic Files)

If there’s a Fredo Corleone of Forensic Files, it’s Brian Vaughn. He betrayed a family member, then incriminated himself by blurting out a few words.

Brian Vaughn at 16

Not that the 16-year-old Texan had formulated anything close to a foolproof plan for getting away with his father’s murder in the first place.

Own worst enemy. Investigators picked apart his story in weeks, issuing an arrest warrant two months after the shooting of San Antonio trial lawyer Leslie Vaughn, murdered in bed at home.

But it was the student-athlete’s own inadvertent admission to a 911 operator that guaranteed he’d end up in a jail cell rather than a dorm room.

Shattered Innocence,” the episode about the November 10, 1998, crime, doesn’t make anyone want to see Brian get away with murder, but it’s still excruciating to hear his unforced error.

The story is also a bittersweet reminder of how small disadvantages feel like the end of the world to a teenager.

Shiny, shiny. Here’s a recap of the episode along with additional information from internet research.

Brian Vaughn was born on May 20, 1982, to Madeline Vaughn, a registered nurse, and Leslie Vaughn, who the San Antonio Express-News described as a respected professional “who sometimes posted bonds for clients out of his own pocket.”

Brian played basketball well enough to make an athletic scholarship a possibility.

Madeline and Leslie Vaughn

But in 1998, he was wishing for an off-court score: a brand-new car. His used auto was cramping his style.

After his father refused to buy him a new one, the old car conveniently caught on fire. It looked like arson, but no charges were filed.

Leslie Vaughn then agreed to replace the burned-out vehicle with another used one. He and Brian had an argument about it at a car dealership on November 10, 1998.

Concerned older brother. Brian and his father left without making a purchase. Later at home, Chris, Brian’s 12-year-old brother, overheard Brian threaten to quit the basketball team if he didn’t get a new car.

That night, at 1:24 a.m., Brian took Chris to the neighbors’ house. Brian explained to Mr. and Mrs. Floyd that he had called 911 after hearing what sounded like an intruder. He wanted to make sure his brother was safely off the premises while he waited for the police.

On the 911 call, Brian said he heard a gunshot coming from his father’s bedroom, but he couldn’t get in to check on him because the door was locked.

When Deputy Edward Olivares broke down the door, he found Leslie Vaughn, age 44, lying in bed with a gunshot wound to the back of his head. A 10-pound piece of limestone lay on the floor; it had created a conveniently tall hole in the French doors leading to the balcony off the bedroom.

The Vaughns’ balcony

Noxious glass. Brian apparently wanted authorities to think that an unknown intruder had climbed onto the balcony, thrown the rock through the glass, shot his father, and exited the same way he came.

His mother was working the night shift at Methodist Heart Hospital, so Brian didn’t have to worry that detectives would suspect her.

It was he who became the No. 1 suspect early on. Investigators saw evidence that contradicted Brian’s narrative. There was broken glass on top of Leslie’s body, suggesting that he slept through the break-in — an unlikely scenario.

This was no burglary. And more glass shards lay on the rug in the hallway outside the master bedroom door. The fragments created a trail to the bathroom. How did it get there if the assailant came and left via the balcony?

Also, Brian had waited 25 minutes in between leaving the Floyds’ house and phoning emergency services, giving him time to shoot Leslie and stage the scene.

Nothing was stolen from the bedroom.

And the bedroom door handle looked rather flimsy. As a couple of online YouTube commenters put it:

• Indy Castleton If my dad was shot I wouldn’t let a locked door prevent me from going inside that’s for sure.
• 
Jocelyn Vernon: I agree if that would of been my parent no door would stop me from getting in the room!!!!

Seeking a scapegoat. Investigators theorized that after dropping off Chris, Brian used his father’s own 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson to shoot him as he slept, then stepped onto the balcony, hurled the rock through the glass, exited through the bedroom door, locked it on the way out, inadvertently tracked shards to the bathroom, washed the gunshot residue from his hands, and called 911.

Brian insisted an unseen intruder was responsible; perhaps one of his dad’s unsavory clients had a grudge.

Leslie Vaughn, who started out as an assistant district attorney for Bexar County and later went into private practice, had defended drug dealers, organized crime figures, and other rough characters.

“My father was a strong man,” Brian told an AP reporter. “He would stand up to anybody, no matter what. I think that’s what happened to him.”

It was a nice try, but not enough, especially once investigators took the time to listen to the entire 911 tape.

Final nail. After giving his locked-bedroom-door-can’t-get-in spiel, Brian said that his father was “bleeding from the mouth area.”

“OK, so how do you know he’s bleeding from the mouth area?” the operator asked.

There was no walking back on that one.

According to court documents, Brian told the Floyds that his father was not moving or breathing, which confused them because he had also told them he couldn’t enter the bedroom.

Anguish: Brian Vaughn during his murder trial

 

The Floyds noted that Brian was wearing a different shirt when he came back to pick up Chris.

Low-profile release? A jury convicted Brian Vaughn in 1999. “Oh, God, no. I can’t lose them both,” his mother cried out upon hearing the verdict, according to an AP account.

A judge sentenced Brian to 33 years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Corrections. Brian served time at the Hamilton Unit in Bryan, Texas, as well as the Ramsey I prison.

As of 2016, he was still incarcerated, according to Inside Prison.

It always seemed a little unfair that the court tried him as an adult when he committed the murder for a child’s reasons. Also, it sounded as though he did so in a fit of anger rather than out of diabolical blood lust.

Book cover
Book in stores and online

He became eligible for parole in 2017 — and it looks as though he won it. Inmate lookup websites for Texas have no listing for a Brian Leslie Vaughn anymore.

What could have been. I searched online for any media coverage related to his release, but nothing turned up. Brian would be 35 today, not old, but past his prime in his sport.

“He was a good athlete,” Bexar County Homicide Detective Al Damiani said in his interview with Forensic Files. “He could have played basketball in college and had the time of his life.”

Perhaps, unlike Michael Corleone, Brian’s younger brother will be forgiving and the two of them, along with their mother, can be a family again.

That’s all for this post. Until next week, cheers. RR

82 thoughts on “Brian Vaughn: A Student-Athlete Kills”

  1. Thanks for this, RR. Vaughn also told the Floyds that his dad wasn’t breathing, as well as the 911 operator about the blood. The Floyds reported in court that they wondered how he knew this, being locked-out. And he admitted, possibly unnecessarily, that he’d washed his hands, as no gunshot residue was found on them.

    A number of small ‘errors’ were made that pointed to his guilt — the ‘mis-speaking,’ the glass trail, and the 25 min delay. While it’s tempting to suggest that ‘if only he hadn’t…,’ I suspect that it’s very often these details that lead to conviction. Still, adults have made far more crass ‘errors’…

    As a child — albeit tried as an adult — he served about 18 years, so likely less than an adult. You say: “It always seemed a little unfair that the courts tried him as an adult when he committed the murder for a child’s reasons. Also, it sounded as though he did so in a fit of anger rather than out of diabolical blood lust.” I think a jury would consider that while no long-term planning was shown, and there was no obvious benefit to Vaughn, there was SOME malice aforethought, since the crime required some planning and sophistication: it didn’t happen during or straight after argument via a ready-to-hand gun. Nonetheless, as he was a child I would find murder in the second-degree (on the information we have): there wasn’t enough planning for substantive premeditation, and the motive was, as you say, a child’s, for which there was no benefit (though how many adults have murdered for a ‘childish’ motive…?) Murder-in-anger, though, is a tough one. Here’s a US case of a first-degree charge for a road rage shooting murder: surely a preeminent case of spontaneous anger and unplanned killing?

      1. His head was blown up. He was spoiled. He let material things overcome him. That’s why you can’t spoil the child one not spare the rod.

    1. Thanks for sending the link! Road rage is such a curiosity — the way drivers think that the actions of strangers on the road are personal affronts.

      1. They MAY think that, and no doubt some do, though I wonder if it’s just pure anger with no personal motivation other than ‘you got in my way and I want you removed.’ It’s one of the ‘precipitative’ situations illustrating the danger of gun ownership/carrying: irrational, extreme, essentially motiveless anger plus a weapon nearby equals danger. But then people who experience these emotions would arguably carry anyway, legally or not.

    2. This is a child that fell for the tricks/wiles of the devil (Ephesians Chapter 6 verses 10-17). This child was into the materialistic things in life; used car cramping his style so he wants a new car. Some would say this is a blessing from God to prevent him for engaging in a worst fate. If that is the case, then glory to The Most High God ✝️✝️✝️ He was released from prison in 2017 and I believe he was 35 at that time.

      1. Lincoln: “Some would say this is a blessing from God to prevent him for engaging in a worst fate.” If you mean by “this” his prison sentence, well, yes, but this was a simple matter of law and justice, so it’s unclear why you would invoke Divine intervention… If you mean the murder he committed caused him to be incarcerated and THAT was by Divine hand – absolutely not. It’s NOT Christian doctrine that God does evil that good may come (I’m sure you appreciate this and therefore don’t mean this interpretation – but I’m left wondering what you DO mean!) The Lord most certainly isn’t instrumental in murder in order to prevent more. This was murder; murder is always and by definition wrong. God cannot do wrong. For if He could intervene to CAUSE (by at least not preventing it) this murder, he could intervene to PREVENT any an all in the fist place. So I’m afraid your suggestion is theologically incoherent (sorry to be blunt, but we don’t want non-Christians thinking that what you suggest is what Christians properly believe! ‘Cos if I were they, it’d put me right off!)

        Vaughn jnr exercised free will, wrongly, to kill his dad, for reason(s) including what you suggest. The Lord created him and enabled him to act on his free will but had no part in the decision and action – at least not according to Christian doctrine.

        I think it’s right that Vaughn jnr has been released for another chance at a decent life. I hope (like you) he repented and repents and that he will have a good life (in every sense). Any NORMAL person who murdered a parent would surely never be free of that guilt – nor should they. That’s a continuing punishment…

    3. I disagree with your assessment that there was no benefit to Vaughn to kill his father. While I don’t know Vaughn’s motives I suspect that his father was standing in the way of him getting a brand new car. With his father dead, his mother, in her grief, surely would have gotten him whatever car he wanted.

      1. It’s a potential motive, though conversely he might consider money tight sans father’s salary – not only resulting in no new car but less of other things. Did he have reason to believe there would have been insurance or a work payout? Unlikely, I think, as it’s not the sort of information a child would be given by parents, though he could’ve asked.

        There’s no obvious motive; one can only speculate. Between 1977 and 1986, more than 300 parents were killed each year by their own children. In this case, mere anger could be sufficient motive: there doesn’t have to be material gain.

    4. A child? I love how when convenient we pull the ‘teen’ card instead of the ‘adult’ card. When I was 16 i was riding my bike 35 minutes to work someplace that wasn’t in the ghetto I lived in. I attended adult Ed as I needed to work to survive. I worked midnights, Over 40hrs a week making $5.15/hr. Adult decisions were made. I didn’t have the luxury of asking my parent for a ‘new car’ vs a used one. My parent took the $850 car I saved for months to buy for work and had to start at $0 again. I certainly didn’t consider killing her to get my car back. Adult decisions. He wasn’t 12.

      1. Although semantic, at 16 he’s not legally an adult. The age of majority in almost all states is 18, as here in UK, with three states greater (19, 21, 21). So yes, he’s a child legally, and your experience of maturity doesn’t make him mature and is, with respect, irrelevant. Whether one ought to be as legally culpable at 16 as an adult is debatable, though I wouldn’t agree. Of course a 16-y-o IS culpable, just less so than an adult, and I suspect that most people agree with this.

        Does a 16-y-o KNOW as well as an adult that killing is profoundly wrong (or is at least regarded by adults and the law as so)? Almost certainly. Does he have as high a degree of control over his impulses/passions as an adult? Unlikely. That’s why he’s regarded as relatively immature; culpability reasonably relating to chronologic maturity.

        Of course, socio-cultural difference over time has seen who we regard as children today regarded as adults. Younger teens have been executed for alleged homicide/rape. But life sentence/death would not, I’m sure, attract anything near majority public support for those 17 and under, though there will be a range of opinion about HOW culpable perps are at a given age (Vaughn wasn’t a young child, but were he 13/14/15 would you still imply he should be treated as an adult?)

    5. Brian did indeed reason out the Modus operandi of the killing, and in my book that’s premeditation. And now he’s already out and free. Why don’t you let him live next-door to you?

  2. False equivalence has to be given its due because it’s out there. In some ways, stupidity and incompetence is as good as having a moral conscience after the fact. Not that it excuses homicide, but it worked as well as a confession. Love the way FF raises obscure points of ethics.

  3. Dumb ass kid, usually this is what white kids do. He even burned the used car he had that he didn’t want thinking his father would buy him a new one. However his father was only going to buy a used one. Spoiled little bitch

    1. Tempting to think he was spoiled — yet dad seems to have been trying not to do that — at least in this instance. There are, as you suggest, too many cases of teens murdering a parent or both because of seeming trivia, though I don’t know if there’s a racial predominance (and if there were, what could we conclude?)

  4. You know I’m sorry to hear that you killed your dad. I never got a chance to know mine and have not seen him since I was 11 years old and I’m 34 now. My mother ran him off and I don’t even know if he is alive because his hair was silver when I was 11 years ago, so I don’t know if it was that he was old or if it was stress, but I would have at least liked to have known something about my dad, and you had yours, man, and you killed him. You need to have him back alive and here with you today. I know I needed mine and still do, just so I could say if I didn’t know something, I wonder what dad would do but I’m not going to keep talking because I’m going to be upset with this issue for a while, even though I don’t know you or your pop’s main alright bv I’m out on you.

  5. This stems from the parents. Doesn’t matter who you are. Once parents start to spoil their children from day one, it’s a done deal! And then parents want to contain them when they get older. These are the consequences for actions played, both on that boy and the parents.

    1. What you write is true in most similar cases, but there is such a thing as a bad seed & this kid seemed to be one of those IMO.

  6. You know, I would have had a hard time being on this jury. The murder clearly didn’t happen the way the police say it did. I’ve watched the footage on FF and you can clearly see that he simply didn’t just “walk outside, close the door and throw and big slab of limestone through it” as they say he did. From what I can gather from the footage, this door was the only access to the balcony, yet there is a towel on the ground right up against the inside of the active door, along with a long black object (which appears to be a fan or a speaker) lying in front of the door, both of which are covered in glass shards. Also, there is a jacket or blanket hanging over BOTH doorknobs, and that had glass on it as well. It is physically impossible to go outside the door, close it, then put these items in place before throwing a rock through the glass and leaving shards on top of those items. I understand it was raining for the three days prior to the murder and there were no footprints on the ground below the balcony, nor mud on the balcony itself.

    If this was in fact the only access to the balcony, it HAD to have been someone coming from outside.

    Just saying.

      1. Be polite, sir…You could be the “moron” you’re talking about to cover up, hypocritically, whatever problems in your own life you have. Just saying and God bless you!

    1. Geesh. I cannot believe how dumb Brian is with the 911 call. His IQ should be tested, and maybe placed in the appropriate facility to protect himself and society.

      1. No, this is what happens when you’re under intense stress and the adrenaline is flowing. He was trying to act upset and remember the lie at the same time.

    2. He’s a spoiled punk. Killed his dad for a car. He might have gotten away with it if his dumb ass had not locked his dad’s door. Then his 911 call would be believable.

  7. I feel so bad for this young man. In all your actions you should think of the consequences if it is worth it. You will need your dad. Hopefully you will stay out of trouble and away from people to cause you trouble. Pray, seek Jesus every minute. I will be praying for you and your family.

  8. TJ: Regardless of the crime’s alleged details, this was a slam-dunk case that no jury presented with the overall evidence could not convict on.

    Evelyn: I feel bad for him – but I think we have to feel worse for the life he took and the others – his family – he gravely damaged first!

    1. Marcus- I’m not implying that the case was completely messed up and that the wrong kid went to prison. I’m only saying that from the video that I saw on the Forensic Files episode that I watched, the way the prosecution said everything went down does not seem to be corroborated by what the video inferred. Unless it was a bad angle or something, there’s no way the scene could appear the way it does IF that patio door is the only door leading out to the balcony. It isn’t physically possible to have clothing hanging on a lever door knob and a sheet/blanket up against the doors threshold and both having glass shards on top of them. He can NOT have gone through the door, closed the door all the way, then hung clothes on the inside door lever and placed a blanket up against the door on the floor all from being outside said closed door… UNLESS there is another way to get to the balcony. That’s all I’m saying.

      1. Are you trying to say that the reenactment is badly portrayed or that the actual real life case doesn’t make sense, because if it’s the latter then I’m sorry but you are crazy and you probably are Brian Vaughn fresh out the pen trying to learn what Internet is all about.

        1. I’m referring to the video shown in the ff episode. If it is a reenactment video, then it doesn’t look right and “oh,well.”

          I believe it is the actual police footage from when they inspected the crime scene. Looking at the video, with a logical mind, it doesn’t add up. Look closely. You decide.

      2. He went back in and further staged the scene via the big-ass hole in the door, and left the room through the bedroom door to the rest of the house, locking it behind him. ‍♀️ They clearly explained this. And even if they didn’t, you’d be pretty dense to forget the big hole he created in the door that he could get in and out through.

    1. Oh, wow. You created an entire sentence Cofield. Nothing to substantiate it with, but good job anyway! Tell you what.. Why don’t you go and try to figure out what’s wrong with your caps lock button on your Tyco keyboard and let us adults talk.

    1. Sometimes it can be as simple as that. I’m curious to know what their relationship was before the murder tho, was there strife between them? I wouldn’t think that a son who had a good relationship with his dad would get so mad for the very first time and kill him.

      1. Their relationship was probably nonexistent — Dad was too busy at the courthouse, Mom too busy at the hospital. Brian needed a shiny car to replace his parents (his b’ball coach may have played more of a father figure than Pops). All Dad had to do was buy that car and he’d be alive today.

  9. I think TJ is Brian. Interesting. I would like to know how he is doing. The relationship he has with his family after being paroled. I can’t imagine living life with this hanging on his shoulders. The constant reminder of the empty hole left in everyone’s lives — his birthday, Christmas, any occasion he is thought of (and brought up?) and he is just not there. The pain must be unbearable.

      1. Thanks so much for writing in with the information. May I ask where you found him listed as still in prison? The government-run inmate locators I’ve used over the years have no record of him now.

      2. He’s out, I just watched the Forensic Files and they have an updated ending where it says he was paroled in 2017.

    1. I remember on FF someone said that when the victim’s wife was informed of the death, she never asked how her husband was killed. I bet she went to visit the Little Prince in prison and kept his commissary account well-padded. I also believe when he got out of prison, Mama got him that new car he wanted. He earned it.

      I think calling the murder of one’s father for a “child’s” reason is a generous statement. How many people kill their parent’s when they don’t get what they want from them? I think of the Menendez Bros, Sarah Johnson, Dana Ewell, Bart Whitaker and Rachael Mullinex. Most kids through proper upbringing, religious instruction, education, and societal norms, do not lift a finger, much less a gun to a parent when they don’t get their way. Unless he suffered from cognitive deficiencies, he was old enough to know right from wrong but obviously not respect.

      1. According to FF, charges were pending at the time of the murder for his striking a security guard (an off-duty police officer); and there was suspicion he’d set fire to his old car.

        It seems like he was somewhat out-of-control, aggressive and impulsive at the time, which culminated in the murder.

        I’d say he’s been quite fortunate to serve only half his 33 yr sentence.

  10. I couldn’t help but think that he had an accomplice. It would make sense that someone else helped him. How could the gun just go missing? His bloody clothes missing? No gun residue on his hands?

    It all leads me to think maybe there was someone else who pulled the trigger and got out of there with the weapon and clothing. The son was pretty clearly involved based on his own statements but maybe he had help. It would explain the mysterious phone calls and the lack of some of the evidence.

      1. If you make a habit of watching these old crime show episodes, you will know how they get rid of the evidence. They don’t say how on the more recent ones because they don’t want to give criminals ideas. On one show, they even mentioned this. Go back and watch true crime shows from the 80’s. After several hundred hours, you will have gleaned a few very valuable tips that I’m not going to share publicly either.

    1. He’d waited some time before calling police, so had time to secrete the gun somewhere in the house or outdoors (we know he went to neighbours), stage the scene and wash GSR from his hands (though he may have been savvy enough to to have worn gloves, changed clothes and ditched the clothes with the gun, or worn perhaps just underwear, then dressed. If he’s watch forensic shows he could know this.) As Leslie was shot, perhaps from some distance (I don’t know), would there necessarily be blood on the perp’s person? A quick shower and removal and secretion of the clothes would have addressed it in any case.

      I presume police regraded the evidence against him as overwhelming, so didn’t expend much effort on finding the gun (and any clothes).

      I don’t think the points you make amount to reasonable evidence for an accomplice; it merely remains a possibility. Indeed, this appears to have been a largely unpremeditated killing, precipitated by very proximate stimulus (the argument), such that involving an accomplice would likely have to have been arranged very hastily.

      The only significant outstanding question is where he hid the gun, albeit not material to guilt.

    2. Highly unlikely indeed that if he had help – and certainly if someone else were the trigger-man – he’d have accepted all blame, is it not? There is no indication of an accomplice. Reasonable to ask the question, though, to reduce assumptions.

    1. That link doesn’t show incarceration status. I can’t imagine Forensic Files would air an updated version saying he had been released if they weren’t 100% certain of that.

      1. DID FF air an update? They don’t usually, do they? Do you mean an update is shown at the end of the of the original? As far as can be told from the interweb, Vaughn IS released (and if I were him I’d change my name if poss…)

        1. As far as I could tell it was just the original episode with an update at the end saying he had been released in 2017. Weird that there is almost no current info on this case anywhere.

  11. That may be so – but insofar as the situation you describe applies to very many families – both parents working – it doesn’t provide explanation, otherwise there’d be very many dead parents.That isn’t to say that mothers in particular shouldn’t feel obliged to be at home for their offspring when economic circumstances permit…

    Either the relationship was awful and this was the final straw or rage arose from nothing and the gun to hand (being America) meant that rage became homicide far too easily.

    I wonder if Vaughn jnr perceived that his dad got scumbags acquitted and thought ‘he does that for them but won’t even get me a car…’ I can imagine such an immature thought process…

    1. Or, I look at it like this..

      It could be that maybe Vaughn Jr was spoiled growing up, but his father started putting his foot down too late..

      1. Of course: children spoiled per parental guilt at absence or whatever is routine.

        A tragic irony that V snr probably defended vicious thugs, and his own son became one…

  12. Another case of a father slain over a car: Devon R. Moore was given 31 years in a Pacific County court for murder with a firearm in the shooting death of Timothy Moore when Moore jr was 16. Moore told his son he could have a car as long as he stayed on the honor roll. But when he didn’t make the roll in November 2010, they quarreled. Prosecutors say Devon Moore shot his father four times as he slept, buried the body in a remote area and told people his father was missing. Woodcutters found the body.

    What’s wrong with these teens?

  13. Would this story be even more pathetic if the “new car” he wanted was a Yugo? Just kidding. I’m sure with his sense of entitlement (enough to kill a parent over) it would have to be something flashy….

  14. Chris, I’m so sorry that the entire time we hung out in high school, I never had the sense to ever even ask you where your dad was. Not that you would have wanted to talk about it. But watching the episode just now and seeing your house and the bottom floor patio area under the balcony where I hung out with you on more than one occasion, has me incredibly shook. Seeing the pictures of your mom and then you as a kid! Holy cow! I can’t believe I never knew all these years. For what it’s worth I’m sorry for the terrible loss you had to endure so young.

  15. Guy kills his dad because he had a fit. He’s a dangerous individual. He should have been sentenced to life without parole or death. Imagine what he could do if he had a fit with your wife? Your daughter? Your son? Your brother? Stop this hug a thug mentality, he’s a monster.

    1. Teenage males commit a disproportionate share of the murders in US. By ’93 (don’t have later figures) teens, aged 14-17, of both sexes together represented 6.5 % of U.S. population and committed 6.1% of the nation’s homicides. Teenage boys, however, were 3.3% of population yet committed 5.6% of the homicides. Finally, black male teenagers, while only 0.5% of the population were responsible for 2.8% of the killings.

      The take and problem: mid-teens, particularly black males, are more dangerous than people might imagine – people who tends to think of homicide as older-teen, ’18+’, activity. The figures may be worse still 27 years after this research.

      What to do? Throw away the key on thousands of children (they ARE children), incarcerating for 60-70 years (at grave expense to the taxpayer), when in many – not all – cases they can and are safely released after considerable prison time? Boys like Vaughn perpetrate this appalling, pointless, immature (literally) crime far too often – but it’s a function of that immaturity and might be expected to be mitigated as they mature (although prison’s likely the worst place to do it). In most cases it would not, per reasonable judgement based upon years of close observation in prison, be repeated.

      It’s reasonable to me that after a long period of imprisonment and assessed risk they’re released. Can it be right that the typical murderer, 10-15 years older, effectively serves 10-15 years less on a life sentence, AND at an age when NO mitigation for immaturity could be accorded? The child perp, on this analysis, is doubly punished.

      How long the child perp should serve for murder is debatable, even when it’s agreed it should be less than adults’. But I’d argue that LWOP or any sentence greater than 10-15 years without parole is too harsh for one murder.

      1. Marcus- I don’t know where you got those statistics from, but if you think black teenage males commit more murders than white teenage males then you’re nuts. When have you ever heard of a black teenage male committing mass murder?

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