Alabama 8-Year-Old Charged With Murder in Toddler’s Beating
Source: NY Times
ATLANTA — An 8-year-old boy has been charged with murder in Birmingham, Ala., where the police said Tuesday that he had “viciously attacked” a toddler whose mother had left children alone while she visited one of the city’s nightclubs.
The authorities announced their intention to prosecute the boy, who was not identified, nearly a month after the death of 1-year-old Kelci Lewis. The child was found unresponsive on Oct. 11, and a police spokesman said Tuesday that investigators believed the older boy had become violent because the toddler would not stop crying.
“The 8-year-old just recklessly, viciously dealt with the 1-year-old,” the spokesman, Lt. Sean Edwards, said at a news conference on Tuesday, one day after the girl’s mother surrendered to the authorities and was charged with manslaughter.
Lieutenant Edwards said that the mother, Katerra M. Lewis, and a friend had left the home where they were staying late on Oct. 10. Six children, none of them older than 8, remained at the home, and while Ms. Lewis was away, the lieutenant said, her daughter began to cry.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/alabama-8-year-old-charged-with-murder-in-toddlers-beating.html
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Last edited Wed Nov 11, 2015, 01:48 AM - Edit history (1)
Are we talking about premeditation? Malice? Conscious Intent? Even a manslaughter charge would involve proving that he killed her in the course of deliberately trying to injure her (as opposed to just getting her to stop crying).
First degree manslaughter is what you describe -- killing someone in the course of deliberately trying to injure them. Second degree manslaughter (what the mother is currently charged with) is negligence or recklessness that you either knew or should have known could result in death. I don't think an eight-year-old has the capacity for either.
rocktivity
Hope the night club was worth it asshole
Last edited Fri Nov 13, 2015, 01:02 PM - Edit history (2)
How are they going to prove premeditation, malice aforethought, or conscious intent on the child's behalf?
rocktivity
Response to alp227 (Original post)
Last edited Wed Nov 11, 2015, 12:45 PM - Edit history (7)
At least five children were left alone, none older than 8." linkAt 11PM, they all should have been in bed asleep. Were they awake and still running around? Was Lewis' friend the parent of the boy? Then why hasn't she been charged, too? Did the kids all live there, or was it supposed to be a sleepover?
WBRC.com: "I think they are trying to allege that she was reckless or negligent in some particular way, and we'll have to deal with that. Of course my client has a different story about what transpired," said...(Lewis') attorney...
Edwards said Katerra Lewis stays at the home in the 7100 block of 2nd Avenue South with her friend, who is the mother of the 8-year-old boy charged with murder and the four other children who were left at the home. He said Lewis and her friend left their kids alone around 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10 to go to the club, according to police.
The mothers got home around 2 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 11 but did not check on their children, Edwards said in a news conference on Tuesday. Police weren't called until 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 11 and at that point, it was too late for little Kelci.
Lewis "stayed" at the home? If it's not Lewis' legal residence, whose is it?
P.S. Alabama doesn't have any "home alone" laws.
rocktivity
Lots of stupid here. 
Last edited Wed Nov 11, 2015, 02:28 PM - Edit history (1)
Alabama law lists a lack of supervision as a form of child neglect under the law. However, like most states, Alabama doesn’t have hard and fast rules regarding the age at which a child may stay home alone, or the age that a babysitter must be. Many young people as young as 11 years old baby sit.(link)
Well, seeing as the babysitting hours occurred when even an eight-year-old is supposed to be asleep, and since he wasn't alone, surely they can make a child neglect charge stick!
rocktivity
and it's terrible.... No 8 year old should be "in charge"
of anything... It's incredibly negligent and stupid. Right there with you.
He is a child and needs to be treated as such. This was a negligent death of an infant. The boy needs extensive therapy at a minimum and if one of the adults who left him in charge is his parent, the state should be able to remove him from parental custody immediately. Beyond that, there are thousand ways this situation may be more complex than it seems and how the children and adults are treated in the courts is not a fait accompli.
People calling for sterilization here -- yeah, that's a Democratic value.
Last edited Thu Nov 12, 2015, 12:50 AM - Edit history (2)
It's just too weird that the mother's friend has neither been charged nor even named. And what sense does it make to charge the child with murder while describing his behavior as "reckless," which is the baseline for manslaughter, which is what the victim's mother is charged with? Are the cops running a misdirection play -- actually zeroing in on the adults by trying trip them up with a false sense of security? I'm asking because of a case I saw on Court TV.
The cops got permission to wiretap suspects in a fatal armored car robbery, then called in the press and released statements. The wiretaps were played in court, and you could hear the suspects saying things like, "Did you see that news report? Those dumbass cops think our getaway car was blue when it was actually green!" Guilty on all counts!
rocktivity
Last edited Sat Nov 14, 2015, 11:27 PM - Edit history (2)
Kelci Lewis’ grandmother, Waynetta Callens, told Al.com there was another adult at the home when Katerra Lewis and her friend left to go to the club.
“Katerra is not the type of parent that they are trying to portray her as,” Callens told Al.com. “We all will have our day in court. Never judge a book by its cover, which means don’t try to judge from the outside. People are already talking, I know they are. If you don’t know the real story, keep your mouth closed because you don’t know what happened,” Callens said.
Now we're getting somewhere, though it begs the question of where Ms. Callens is getting her information (if she wasn't the third adult herself). If she got it from Ms. Lewis, don't you think she would have mentioned it to the cops as well? And what kind of a person is Ms. Callens portraying if she's deliberately keeping HER mouth closed while an eight-year-old takes the rap for what an adult did?
rocktivity
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — An 8-year-old boy is being charged with beating a 1-year-old girl to death while they were left home alone as their mothers went to a nightclub, Alabama police said Tuesday.
The boy beat and killed 1-year-old Kelci Devine Lewis when she wouldn't stop crying, Birmingham police spokesman Sean Edwards said. The mother of the toddler, 26-year-old Katerra Lewis, also is charged with manslaughter, he said.
"This is by far one of the saddest cases that I have witnessed and been a part of since I became a police officer," Edwards said. "This type of irresponsibility on behalf of a parent is totally unacceptable."
There were six children left alone, none older than 8 years old. This child is going to need counseling for years. As for the women, I wonder if Social Services won't take away the other children.
Last edited Wed Nov 11, 2015, 07:31 PM - Edit history (2)
Lewis' inexplicably anonymous "friend," who just happens to be the mother of the alleged perp, is equally guilty of child neglect and manslaughter at best and accessory to murder at worst. And now there may have been a third adult involved? I have to admit that I've been beginning to wonder if an 8-year-old is capable of inflicting such grievous wounds.
rocktivity
