If a child under 5 accidentally or on purpose murders someone what happens to them?
Surely they would be too young to understand what they did
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That depends on your definition of murder. In most countries, toddler cannot legally murder someone, because murder needs motive and criminal intent. That’s not possible with a toddler. However a toddler can kill someone, but again, they still couldn’t be charged with anything in most countries, because they are to young to be responsible for their actions.
At most, the parents or guardians could be charged with neglect if they put the toddler in a situation or state of mind, where they killed someone. Like if they handed them a loaded gun or something. Because there’s not that many ways a toddler can kill someone without “lucky circumstances”.
And child protective services would definitely watch the family for a while to make sure nothing happens again. Not because they blame the kid, because the kid is not capable of murder, but because the kid was put into a very dangerous situation and needs to be protected.
It comes down to the question of criminal capacity, which is the term for a person’s ability to understand that the action is wrong / unlawful and that there are consequences attached.
If a 3-year-old knows about guns and says he wants to shoot someone, he knows it is wrong but cannot be presumed to understand the consequences attached. With that said, the child would be evaluated to determine their ability to understand the situation, as well as what the appropriate consequence can be.
This also raises the 2 stages of the criminal sanction. Step 1 is conviction and step 2 is sentencing. Even if a 3-year-old can be found guilty of murder, the child can’t be sent to prison and probably can’t even be sent to a juvenile facility. Most likely, there will be a series of psych interventions to alter the child’s home circumstances.
In addition to this, the adult(s) in charge of this child will be looked at for culpable homicide (manslaughter) charges, as well as possible child endangerment (if the child had access fo a weapon).
There’s a difference between murder and killing someone. Toddlers can’t murder. It’s impossible. Murder is the deliberate ending of a person’s life with intention. Toddlers can’t have intention to murder. The don’t fulfil that part of the definition of murder so charges cannot be brought against them.
All countries have an age of culpability – in England and Wales it is 10. So below 10 a child cannot be considered to be incapable of murder. They can *kill* but they would not be responsible. So they would have counselling and their parents might have social services involved, but the child wouldn’t be punished at all.
Yup. Probably counseling and visit from social folks. Nothing much else, possibly a civil lawsuit (against the caregiver/guardian/parent) if the other party claims some kind of negligence.
There is the legal concept call the “age of criminal responsibility” and some nuance in between that age and a juvenile and then to full adult. Below that age (which a toddler would be) there can be no criminal charges/prosecution. (I think this is pretty absolute). Not sure if this is applicable to all countries but probably most Western legal systems.
They would likely get sent to a shrink but would not be put in juvenile detention or anything. That is assuming that it was intentional. If it was purely accidental like say they were playing with a gun than they still would see a shrink. That said the care taker would find themselves in hot water.
It’s happened before.
Most states have an age of accountability, where they feel a child would know the difference between right and wrong. But there have been instances, one for example a child found his moms gun while he was in the backseat of the car, he shot mom and killed her accidentally. It wouldn’t be criminally charged as the child couldn’t know better.
Now, if someone’s toddler murders someone, it doesn’t stop that toddlers parents from being charged with negligence because the parent does know better and should’ve been watching the toddler
Rule 2.
Better to r/ask_lawyers about this.
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