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Boy found responsible for killing neo-Nazi father | |
(35 minutes later) | |
A California boy has been found responsible for murder in the shooting death of his neo-Nazi father at age 10. | A California boy has been found responsible for murder in the shooting death of his neo-Nazi father at age 10. |
The ruling means that the boy, now 12, could be sent to a juvenile prison until age 23. | |
Prosecutors argued he killed his father, Jeff Hall, 32, to stop him separating from the boy's stepmother. | |
Defence lawyers said the boy, who had grown up in an abusive environment, was too young to know right from wrong when he pulled the trigger in May 2011. | |
Hall was shot at point-blank range as he slept on a sofa in the family's home. | |
In her ruling, Riverside County Judge Jean Leonard said she had considered the boy's age, his understanding of the crime and his "long history of abuse and neglect". | |
"This was not a naive boy," Judge Leonard said, according to NBC Los Angeles. "[He] knew what he was doing was wrong at the time of the crime." | |
At issue in the case was whether there was premeditation. | |
The boy's younger sister supported the prosecution's case by saying that her elder sibling had plotted the shooting days in advance. | |
The boy had also told police he did not expect to get in trouble because he had seen an episode of the television show Criminal Minds in which a child killed an abusive father and was not arrested. | |
Prosecutors also noted that the boy had a history of violence dating back to nursery school when he stabbed a teacher with a pencil. |