Your Black World reports.
The police in Jacksonville, Florida said they noticed months ago that the 2-year old half brother of Cristian Fernandez was having trouble. The boy had a broken leg and police are saying that these were signs of the abuse that would take the young child’s life. The family told police that the boy had been hurt while playing on a Jungle Gym.
As a result of actions that took place later on down the road, Fernandez may become the youngest person in the history of the city to face the charge of first-degree murder. If he is convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility for parole.
“It is disturbing, but when you know you have to balance the safety of other children in the home and in the community, it is not so disturbing,” State Attorney Angela Corey said.
Given that he has been charged as an adult, other attorneys are wondering if the young man could have understood what he was doing.
“Especially if it’s a beating death, you could argue that the child did not have the intent to kill, which would be necessary even for second-degree murder,” said Robert Batey, a criminal law professor at Stetson University College of Law. “Or that the child was not capable of the cool thinking beforehand that’s implied by the notion of premeditation.”
The little boy died in March with a fractured skull, a bleeding brain an a bruised left eye and nose.
Biannela Susana, the mother of both children, is being charged with aggravated manslaughter by culpable negligence and goes to trial in September. Police say that she came home to find her two-year old unresponsive, but failed to call 911. Instead, she put ice on his head and went to websites to research concussions, waiting for the child to wake up, which he never did.
Christopher Slobogin, the Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University, says that most states wouldn’t charge someone this young with such a serious offense. Florida, however, is a state that makes exceptions. But he says that this case is rare, even for a state that is willing to send children to prison for life.
“Even in Florida, kids this young are rarely prosecuted in adult court, even for crimes this serious,” Slobogin said.
