"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.
Actually when I was young I dated a straight-edge SHARP. He was into thrasher music, dressed like a skin head, but belonged to a group that was against racisim and all that. He was against drinking, drugs, abuse, too. His group would fight with neo-nazi's if they had to.
It was the weirdest thing ever to see me this black chick with this skin head looking dude and we got many curious looks. but hey he looked like Brad Pitt with the body of a god and drove a nice motorcycle, so you cant blame a girl! He also was an animal activist that hated the government. He was a real sweet guy though.
During an interrogation that lasted more than an hour, Joseph was allowed to give up his Miranda rights a decision the boy made without an attorneys guidance and, some argue, without fully understanding what that entailed.
Joseph has been in custody since his fathers death. In 2013, the boy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 10 years in a California juvenile facility.
Many child advocates and politicians think the boys conviction was flawed. They argue that Joseph, a child with developmental disabilities, could not have realized the wrongfulness of what he had done and could not have understood what it meant when he gave up his Miranda rights while being interrogated by police after the shooting.
Josephs culpability and the issue of allowing children to waive their Miranda rights without any legal guidance are now the subject of proposed legislation in California, as well as a pending appeal to the nations highest court.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/10-year-old-boy-who-killed-neo-nazi-father-denied-supreme-court-review/Can a 10-year-old boy “knowingly and intelligently” decide to waive his Miranda rights?
That was the question the attorneys for Joseph Hall, the boy who shot and killed his neo-Nazi father, Jeffrey Hall, in 2011, asked the Supreme Court to weigh. But on Wednesday, the court declined to hear their case.
“We were very surprised,” says Nima Mohebbi, one of the now-15-year-old’s attorneys. “It’s very unfortunate.”