From Casey Black
From: Change.org
Date: Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 9:40 PM
[...]
please help Peace,
I saw you signed the petition for Troy Davis. You seem interested in matters relating to human rights so I thought I'd reach out to you. I am helping to advocate for another cause relating to 12 year old Cristian Fernandez. He has been charged as an adult for his younger brother’s death, despite the fact that there is no evidence he planned to hurt his brother or intended to kill him. His mother waited for two hours before seeking medical treatment for her younger son and doctors have said that had she sought treatment immediately he might have survived.
Cristian should not be tried as an adult, but that is what the Florida State’s Attorney requested. They also asked that a gag order be placed on his case, preventing the public from accessing important information pertaining to Cristian’s case. This child has a long history of being the victim of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. Would you consider signing his petition and sharing it with anyone else you think might be interested in signing it as well?
http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult
You can find out more about Cristian’s case here:
http://www.justice4juveniles.com
I really appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you for your time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This boy may be beyond help - the failures in his life have been catastrophic, both on his part and (more importantly at his age) the parts of those around him - but we don't know that. What we do know is that if he's tried as an adult now and sent to an adult prison, the likelihood that he'll ever be able to gain the tools he needs to do better, if he can and will, is made significantly smaller.
Courts appear to make it a habit to close juvenile cases to public scrutiny, which only serves to make the justice system look as though it feels it has something to hide. If the system has served Cristian to the best of it's ability there should be no shame involved in allowing the public to hear the facts of the case. If it hasn't, we need to know those facts in order to better make the changes we must toward fixing it, and toward preventing the circumstances that lead to a child being in the position he is in the first place.
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