 Rabbits shot with BB gun
Delray Beach, FL (US)Incident Date: Thursday, May 31, 2001
County: Palm Beach
Local Map: available
Disposition: Not Charged
Person of Interest: Brandon Trice
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By the time Brandon Trice was 12, he had racked up convictions for grand-theft auto, battery on a school employee, aggravated assault, burglary, animal cruelty and lewd conduct.
The Delray Beach youth was sent to a juvenile lockup for 18 months, and by his admission it was only a matter of weeks before he was back to his old tricks. In February 2002, he confessed to carjacking, armed robbery and kidnapping when he held up two men 10 days apart using a pair of scissors as if they were a knife.
Now 15, he faces up to life in prison.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Kenneth Stern repeatedly has referred to Trice as callous, cruel, violent and psychopathic. The judge is struggling with an age-old question when it comes to young criminals -- should Trice be given another shot at rehabilitation or put away for a long time to protect the public?
Prosecutors say the answer is simple: 25 years in prison.
The solution is as complex as the circumstances of the impoverished life that first landed the boy in the criminal-justice system, says Assistant Public Defender Travis Dunnington. He believesTrice can be taught to be a productive member of society if he spends another three years in a juvenile lockup and is given the proper help once he gets out.
"We want him to have a chance," said Dunnington, who spent five hours over Tuesday and Wednesday presenting testimony and argument to Stern to have Trice sentenced as a juvenile offender.
But prosecutors said they thought Trice's crimes were serious enough to charge him as an adult. Prosecutor Timothy Beckwith told the judge that the only way to guarantee Trice doesn't commit another serious crime is to put him in prison, not in a juvenile center that will release him in 18 to 36 months.
"I don't think you can take a chance and expose him to society so soon," Beckwith said.
The judge indicated during the hearings he would consider sentencing Trice to juvenile sanctions in one case and then impose a long term of probation in the second case, so that if Trice backslides he can be sent to prison. Stern said he would announce his decision April 7.
Stern sought the opinions of the mental-health and juvenile-justice experts on a question with an unknowable answer: whether Trice would return to violent crime upon his release. A psychologist and a former juvenile-justice caseworker both said Trice could flourish on the right side of the law with mentoring and counseling.
The judge also expressed concern that Trice demonstrated an escalating pattern of violence with no apparent remorse over the harm to his victims. One victim testified he thought he was going to be killed when Trice forced him into his car to drive to an ATM to get more cash. The man was able to alert a store clerk to the robbery, and Trice fled.
The judge said Trice could have lashed out with the weapon if the confrontations had escalated.
"He could easily have killed these two people," Stern said.
Trice testified he and a friend climbed some fences to get to a neighbor's yard to shoot at rabbits with BB guns, and killed one rabbit. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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