Report: 6-year-old won’t be charged after shooting teacher
Authorities in the Virginia city where a 6-year-old shot and wounded his teacher will not seek criminal charges against the child, the local prosecutor told NBC News Wednesday, in a decision that was anticipated by legal experts.
But Newport News Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn said his office has yet to decide if any adults will be held criminally accountable.
Newport News police have said that the boy used his mother’s 9mm handgun in the Jan. 6 shooting at Richneck Elementary School. A lawyer for the child’s mother has previously stated that the weapon, which was legally purchased, was secured on a high closet shelf and had a lock on it.
Gwynn did not immediately respond to two phone messages and two emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.
He told NBC that the “prospect that a 6-year-old can stand trial is problematic” because he wouldn’t have the competency to understand the legal system and what a charge means.
Gwynn told the news outlet that his office is still focusing on others besides the child.
“Once we analyze all the facts, we will charge any person or persons that we believe we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt committed a crime,” he said.
The decision did not come as a surprise. Even though it is possible under Virginia law to criminally charge a 6-year-old child, legal experts said it would be highly unlikely that a prosecutor would even try.
A common-law doctrine known as the “infancy defense” holds that children under 7 cannot be prosecuted for a crime because they are too young to be capable of forming criminal intent. A judge also would have to find that the child was competent to stand trial, meaning that he could understand the legal proceedings and assist attorneys defending him.
“You have to be able to show that they understand the seriousness of it, planned it, and executed it,” Julie McConnell, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told the AP. “It would be very hard to prove that a 6-year-old could understand that what he did could have permanent consequences,” McConnell said.