National Socialist Movement (NSM)’s Regional Director Jeffrey Hall holds a neo-Nazi flag. (file photo)
A US juvenile court has convicted a 12-year-old Californian boy of second-degree murder over the shooting of his neo-Nazi father two years ago.
The court made the decision on Monday based on Joseph Hall’s motives and understanding of the law rather than a ruling of guilty or innocent.
“The minor knew what he did was wrong,” said Judge Jean Leonard of the Riverside County Superior Court, east of Los Angeles.
Hall, who has a disposition hearing on February 15, could serve 11 years inside a juvenile detention center.
According to Leonard, at the age of 10, the offender shot dead his father at point-blank range on May, 2011.
Hall’s father, Jeffrey, 32, was a regional director of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), a white separatist group.
The defense argued that Hall, as a child, had a lifetime of abuse and his father had conditioned him to violence.
“He was abused and neglected from the womb,” she said. “The NSM taught him things a minor should not know about,” said Leonard.
The court for the under-18s took into consideration the effects of a lifetime of torture from the parental figure.
Kathleen Heide, a criminologist, told reporters that as little as 16 murder victims over the past 32 years were slain by their offspring, who were 10-year-olds or younger ones.
GVN/HN
