I believe that only God determines who will burn in hell. I respect your beliefs, but I don't think that any one of us can sentence anyone.

Jamie they don't deserve to rot in hell and you know it. Your willing to codemn them for one act of complete stupidity to a life of eternal damnation. That sounds like a fair trade to me. Do they deserved to be punished, of course they committed a crime, but what do you think is really the right course of action. If we lock them up for 20 years they'll come out and be useless to society. However, if we as a society, take the time to counsel these kids and educate them, we might make decent humans out of them. By simply putting them in jail we are taking the accountability out of our hands and just hoping that prison will fix them.... Wow i can't believe i agreed with somer, sorry somer will never happen again...:)

Well...we will disagree on this point then. The problem isn't that everyone will evolve in the same way but that some will. That's why I take offense when folks use words such as "every" and "all".

Sure it will....anyway, no offense taken, lol!

I think you are wrong about hunting, it causes a basic disconnect with animals, can cause a lack of compassion towards people. Everyones brain works differently, those kids, thinking like kids think, saw those horses the same way a game hunter would see a deer. Just a thrill kill, unfortunately some people get a thrill out of killing animals. In this case unfortunately the kids are buffoons

well, i can't speak for all hunters, just for myself, my husband and some others i know.
i know in our case it's not 'thrill killing' at all-altho for some it is. there are those who go out and kill a deer, cut off its antlers and leave the rest to rot. i have absolutely no respect for them at all.
we hunt for meat-no part gets wasted, i haven't shot a buck in years. and i don't shoot anything i don't eat. some kill anything that comes by. not me. we also fish-don't do that for thrills either, altho it can be thrilling....we eat everything we bring back from the river as well.

haha somer just normally we are in entirely diffrent ends of every issue, shows that everyone has something in common with every one else.

I honestly have never met a hunter who gets a thrill out of watching animals suffer. The only kinds of hunters I've ever been around enjoy hunting for the sport, enjoy the time spent outside and know that without hunting, deer etc. would be over populated and starve to death. I know a guy who has 30 walker coonhounds and he loves each one of them to death... they go hunting with him and he treats them like his children. Does that mean that he was taught to be a cold blooded killer because he hunts? I don't think so.

What these teens did was cold blooded, guys... no doubt about it. They need a harsher punishment than community service, sorry but they do.

what do you recommend cajun?

Absolutely...actually we all have more in common than different, it's just that the differences are usually the impetus for discussion/debate!

i know a lot of places, animal cruelty is still a misdemeanor-and it should not be. it should be handled like many other crimes, with different 'classes' depending on severity. much like stealing $500 worth of stuff is a class c, but stealing tens of millions is a class a-or however it's set up.

time in jail-maybe, depending on the severity of the crime. community service would be good, as would getting these kids some education! obviously for some reason they weren't taught about common decency.

I think that they should be put in prison for 10 years (without bail) and enrolled in one of those programs (where they are constantly monitored), but required to care for animals. Some of those programs work with dogs, some with horses etc. Point is, they should not be able to have the freedom by just doing community service. They need to learn about these animals and RESPECT them, and the only way they're going to respect them is by having them be the only recreation outside of prison that they get. I am a huge believer that a person who does this to animals DOES have a great potential for becoming a serial killer. If you can't respect an innocent animal who has done nothing to you, how are you going to respect a human being?

Don't generalize...not saying all hunters. If a person loves animals and respects life then they will treat animals with respect, hunter or not. But America's love affair with guns and killing stuff is a symptom of an overall lack of respect for life. We rationalize...ie: killing animals is good because we must control overpopulation. So...killing is justified to prevent other causes of death from predators, starvation etc. Humm...but if I kill a deer, that's my act, my responsibility, if a pack of wolves kill a deer...that's their act. So...I'm not responsible for my act since if I didn't do it someone or something else would? Seems to me I've heard that argument before....

Somer, would you rather kill an animal for food QUICKLY (which is what a REAL hunter does) or would you rather that animal die a slow death by starvation? I choose the former. By the way, wolf packs are dwindling as well due to humans. All of our development over their territory is slowly killing them off. They have nowhere to go... and guess what that means? Death for them too. To me, it's sad what this world is coming to.

The weakness of that is that society can't impose morality especially via punishment. The trick is to change their thought process, not just their behavior. being forced to care for animals could just as easily make them hate them as respect them.

it's a mess. we are part of nature, but we're supposed to 'rise above it'...we mess up the food chain, of which we are most definitely a part, but then some of us don't want us to be a part of it. we made ourselves the top predator, which means the prey is breeding like rabbits, since we've pretty much wiped out all the other predators--but then we're not supposed to do our part as the top predator?

most definitely a mess. we haven't been good stewards. and like every other subject-there is no agreement on how to be good stewards.

I have no problem with taking the life of an animal for food...if necessary! But again, same point...I can't justify killing by saying that if I don't someone or something else will!

That's very true, but I don't know of many people who can honestly "hate" an animal once they've been forced to spend that much time around them. That's a huge risk, I agree, but community service is looked at as a joke to many people and I'd rather have these kids behind bars.

that's true. can't make those kids love animals. but of course you hopefully punish the crime enough to keep them from behaving in such a way again. or from getting worse.

True! But as with all punishment, it only addresses the act not the cause.

Somer,
Your heart is in the right place and most of society apparently agrees with you b/c you know the punishment will be small.

But, to me, the torture of defenseless animals is done by morally weak people that have evil in them. Stupid decisions are one thing, this is another....The fact is, these people do not benefit society at the end of the day. No different than sex offenders, which have been proven to not be able to be rehabilitated. So what's the use....They'll get little if any punishment and it will be swept under the rug. But these guys are every bit as bad as the person doing the driveby shooting. And don't be surprised when they are 30 and in jail for violence against humans.

I would tend to agree....don't know the circumstances of course but most times, behavior like this just doesn't manifest without family being a factor.

This is the thing that stood out to me the most. Why is it that people are so unwilling to see malice for what it is? I don't understand the phenomenon of wanting to put euphemisms on the cruel things humans do. "Stupidity" means that something was done accidentally or without understanding that the action would produce pain within another living being. But here you have several horses being shot dozens of times, which certainly indicates intent instead of an accident, and you also have one of the boys saying that he had been injured by a horse in the past and wanted to shoot the horses, which certainly indicates that he KNEW full well his actions would cause harm and pain to the horses.

On top of that, I think the movement towards infantilizing anyone under the age of 18 is foolish. Yes, someone who's 16 may not have the same mind of a 25 year old, but they're not going to automatically learn to behave when they celebrate their 18th birthday if society continually sends the message that "oh you're just a kid, so obviously you didn't mean to do anything wrong." You have to teach and enforce the right behavior as early as possible. You can tell a kid about the difference between right and wrong, but unless you punish the bad behavior and reward the good behavior, they'll never have any incentive to actually practice the desired behavior. It seems to me our society is making it harder and harder for kids to become mature, functional adults by saying nothing's ever their fault and allowing them to get away with irresponsible, cruel actions.

Wow...you took a huge leap there! I'm not saying that a person isn't responsible for his/her behavior...we all are regardless of circumstances! It's called free will, we all have it and that means we are each responsible for everything we do. Nobody condones cruel behavior such as this, the difference lies in how best to deal with same. Lets be honest..."spare the rod and spoil the child" has been society's answer forever...and it hasn't worked. People change only when they want to change and find the inner strength to do so...no amount of punishment by society can change a person's soul...you can restrict, even eliminate overt actions but until people learn to respect life and the rights of others, you are only covering up the cancer not curing it. It isn't government's role to punish or kill people, rather it must protect and help! We lock folks up in massive prisons and they come out worse than they went in...that's a cold hard fact! And we are supposedly a civilized society yet we often sanction murdering children...ok, we call it capital punishment. When someone says that a child should be treated as an adult, that goes against the basic fact that a child is NOT an adult. There is evil in the world and it must be fought...there are evil people and those that may not be evil but succumb to evil's call that must be defeated, but that's not the same as saying that we have some right to our pound of flesh just cause someone's actions offend us. It's way past time that we stop focusing on punishing behavior and start working on eliminating the causes...yes, these kids committed heinous acts of cruelty and there must be consequences...but nobody benefits from bloodlust!

17 is an adult to me.

Would you sleep with a 17 year old girl randall?

What kind of question is that?

First, the age of consent in most states is 16, but since I'm a teacher, its 18 for me---as it is for a religious leader, police officer, etc....(So essentially the state is saying that 16 is as adult as needs be when it comes to sex)

But just b/c I wouldn't sleep with a 17 year old, doesn't mean they aren't an adult.

A loaded one

Haha. I guess so.:o

I didnt mean anything by it, just kidding around with you.

I still dont believe anyone under 18 should be able to be prosecuted as an adult. Not in any case.

For the record I also think Scott Peterson should be out playing golf. Not that I dont think he killed his wife, I dont think they proved he killed his wife. If I were on the jury I hang it.

hard to say unless you were there to hear it all.

that whole beyond a REASONABLE doubt thing too.

i think society is conflicted about the 18 and adult thing. kid can get an abortion and be considered an adult. but the same people who argue for that would say no way you consider them an adult for trial...

That is So not funny! That's like saying O.J. is innocent. They're both psychos....and there are young men 16-18 that have psychotic tendencies too. As citizen of this country we have a right to expect to live in relative peace, not to be subjected to societys' violent miscreants. The Welfare of THIS society is what should be protected, not the people who act out violently or irresponsibly.

We? Who's we? The morons and simps of our country?

Based upon what? CNN?

We=society.....don't start taking this personally, hunting is a huge part of Americana. And one more time, a generalization should never be construed to mean "all" or "everyone".

No physical evidence. With the forensics we have there should have been some sort of DNA linking him. I dont think it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

I think he killed her, everyone thinks he killed her...however, if the glove dont fit you must aquit

However you were not in the courtroom subject to the full case provided to the jury by the DA. Nor were you personally able to hear the defenses case. You only know what was told to us by the media which in many cases is far from credible.

I have court TV cannon.

I wasnt in the court room, however, I watched that entire trial and I just dont see how you convict the guy of murder. They just didnt prove the case IMO.