8-Year-Old Accused Killer Heads Home for Holidays

Dec. 23, 2008 — -- For one 8-year-old boy in Arizona, heading home for the holidays is a respite unlike most others.

Because after he spends time with his mother, he'll return to juvenile detention where he will await potential first-degree murder charges.

The boy, whose name has not been released because of his age, has been charged with a double homicide for allegedly shooting his father and another man with a single-shot .22 rifle four times each Nov. 5.

He reportedly confessed during an hourlong interrogation video released by the Arizona's Prosecutor's Office.

In the video, the boy admits to the shooting about 40 minutes in, but said it was because his father was already "suffering."

By that point, however, the boy had changed his story several times about the events that had led to the death of the two men.

"I went upstairs and then I saw my dad and then I got the gun and then I fired it at my dad," the boy said calmly. "He was on the ground and then I reloaded it."

When police asked him whether he shot his father because he was mad at him, he offered a noncommittal "hmm," but said he is in trouble "most of the time" at home, mostly for lying.

Police interrogated him without legal counsel present, causing some juvenile defenders to suspect police coercion, which the police deny.

"I think as the interview progresses there are clearly points where they should have stopped it and gotten him an attorney," Meridith Sopher, supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society, told "Good Morning America" upon seeing the tape last month.

Prosecutors have reportedly offered the defense a plea bargain in the case, which is being considered before the case moves forward.

If a criminal case proceeds, many juvenile experts have expressed concern about how the prosecution ought to be handled and whether an 8-year-old can fully comprehend his or her actions.

"[Kids] are really not as blame-worthy," Marcia Levick, director of the Juvenile Law Center at University of Pennsylvania Law School, told "Good Morning America" today.

"Certainly, their capacity to form that criminal intent and to hold them responsible in the way we blame adults, it doesn't take hold ... until the teen years. I don't think we can make assumptions on whether he was premeditating. He's 8. The question isn't whether we try him as an adult. The question is whether we hold him responsible in the juvenile justice system."