True, but what I meant is that the defense is going to argue some kind do accident or roughness that got out of hand argument, because they do not have anything else to say. It might just be hard to prove first degree unless the condition of the body show such proof. Someone could push someone and they could hit their head and kill someone. The bigger problem, I think, is showing who did the acts and show beyond a reasonable doubt that both did the killing rather than 1 doing the killing, and the other just being there
I am not so sure either that they killed her initially. They may have thought they did and then they did something more to cover it up and that second act could have been the final straw. That is probably where the second kid comes in, because if it was just the strangulation, it would be hard logistically to have 2'stranglers at the same time. Maybe one held her down, but one had to have been the strangler, and it will be hard to prove which one.
If there were two separate acts it might be easier to prove both were responsible.
I too remember seeing in ID discovery, etc that sometimes in these cases where there is a joint defense, the younger kid takes more responsibility since he knows that he would be out in less time, often by age 21. And then the older one tried as an adult will take less responsibility., even if in fact he was the ringleader. This may happen where the older one has some sort of psychological hold on the young one (or parent/child situation). Then it turns out both are loose in 5 years. I am just speaking generally, I have no clue whether anything like that will happen here, I just thought of it when someone mentioned one might be tried as an adult and one tried as a juvenile. Doing so makes the dynamics of the situation different for both of them bc the level of punishment for the juvie one is so much less, though I am not sure what is the maximum punishment for juvie in NJ.
