A 12-year-old boy had been found guilty of murdering his white supremacist neo-Nazi father when he was only 10-years-old it was reported by the N.Y. Times on Jan. 14. Joseph Hall shot and killed his father, Jeffrey Hall, 32, in 2011 while he was sleeping on the family room sofa. The father was the regional director of the National Socialist Movement in California.
A judge found Hall criminally responsible for second degree murder at his trial, which focused not on whether or not he did the crime, but whether he realized the difference between right and wrong. He could be sent to a juvenile facility until he turns 23. Hall's father was shot with a .357 Magnum at point blank range while he was sleeping in May 2011.
Defense attorneys agreed that the boy did indeed shoot his father, but disputed the fact of whether he should be held criminally responsible. Hall, at first, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. That plea was withdrawn. The court was told by a psychologist that the boy had been accustomed to violence by years of emotional, physical and possible sexual abuse.
Hall explained in a videotaped interview with police that he believed he wouldn't get in trouble for killing his father. He mentioned an episode of the TV drama "Criminal Minds" in which a child kills an abusive father and that child was not arrested.
Prosecutors brought up an event when Hall was in kindergarten and stabbed a teacher with a pencil to illustrate how Hall had a history of violence. Additional evidence came forth in court from Hall's younger sister. She admitted that her brother had been scheming to shoot his father for many days before he actually committed the murder.
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