When a minor commits murder they are usually regarded as being an adult. There has to be some trapping of their childhood left despite their actions. If someone found a reason as to why eighteen is the legal age of adulthood that led to having separate courts for minors and adults, those reasons should be stood by. In no case should a minor be charged as an adult despite the gravity of his/her actions.

Many people would argue otherwise; that if a minor commits an adult crime, taking the life of another, they should have the same exact consequences. A fifteen- year- old that beats another peer to death over a video game, in their opinion, knew what he was doing just as an adult would. The point of this is not to dispute that he/she does not know that what they were doing was horribly wrong, but the whole point and logic is that no grown man or woman in their right mind would murder another over something as juvenile as that.

There was a case where an eight year old boy who murdered his father and another man and was being considered tried as an adult for premeditated, intended, double murder. One of the arguments to this was since his father taught him how to operate a rifle for hunting, the third grader knew exactly what he was doing and shot them in cold blood. According to the American Psychology Association, APA, at the age of eight “The part of the brain that is responsible for good judgment and control of impulses is still immature; consequently, children of this age do not yet have the capacity to fully control their impulses.” It was said that his father may have been abusive, and reflecting on what the APA says, the boy’s impulse to end the abuse with a gun he was shown how to use, should not be held to him. Regardless, he was eight. The philosopher John Locke said once, “Parents wonder why the stems are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain”. Of course the boy should have some repercussions, counseling most definitely, but being considered charged as an adult is ridiculous.

If people stand by the legal age of eighteen for adulthood, they should also stand by the valid reasons of having separate courts for minors. They are children. A prime example is held valid in the analogy towards the age of receiving a driver’s license. The laws are always changing, made in part of the fact that kids under the age of sixteen and a half are still too immature and impulsive with their actions. If they can be seen as still too immature on the road, it should be the same in the courtroom. Nothing is just black and white, there are always the gray parts; the exceptions, but children do not belong in federal state prisons; of age men and women do.