Michael Leonard

And it's very possible that

that a judge is familiar with the detective.

He might be a former prosecutor.

You know, there's all sorts of links here which really need to be examined.

And I hope you do a show just on that, Jack.

Oh, it's just sick.

Yeah, I mean, it varies state by state here in our country.

So it can be remarkably different from one jurisdiction to another, but...

Some places would incarcerate him in a juvenile facility, and then when he reached the majority, they'd put him in a real prison, which is the way to go.

But certainly there's been a recognition in our system about charging children as adults, about punishing them as adults.

There's a lot of great scientific work that's been done by expert witnesses that's been brought to the courtroom about the development of the brain.

and what a child's capable of doing and the decision-making and the fact that they don't have those capabilities yet.

But to ignore the fact that these are kids, 12 or 15 or whatever, is just mind-blowing because that's an enormous factor.

And to try to say that, oh, wow, it's such a severe crime that they're beyond rehabilitation is just ridiculous.

We know that's not true.

So, yeah, I mean, listening to this particular cast really kind of depressed me a little bit.

And I did want to assure your listeners that this really is kind of a great case to show all the ways the system can fail.

But I want to assure them that.

I've been involved in so many other cases where I felt like, wow, this system works.

A jury found in favor of my client.