Slender Man Stabbing Perpetrators to Be Tried as Adults at 13
Ted Hentschke
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Here at Dread Central, I aim to be a bit of jester. Not a clown, but someone who in the classical playwright sense uses humor to allude to some kind of deeper truth. Making light of the darker bits of our world lends a sarcastic wit that makes it easier to process the macabre, blending horror and humor in a way that makes both seem less a stranger to the other. It is a carefully constructed tactic, both making me seem more likeable and clever than I am. Without it, I’m just left with my opinions.
Yet, there are some things that there is just no joking about. I often shy away from real news, preferring my published opinions to carry little more weight than a simple thumbs-up or down over the incredibly inconsequential quality of media. I’d prefer not to have my opinions plastered all over Tumblr or the Twitterverse, as the ever increasing political correctness of the internet has led to a divisive “camp” mentality, with factions declaring war on others and assigning qualitative titles like “racist” or “misogynist” with little recourse for the accused. Nevertheless, when times like this come, where jokes just won’t do, it is only these hard felt opinions I have left to offer.
If you read my review or the Slender Man movie Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story, you probably noticed a little piece where I wryly commented on “what is a slenderman” and “why is he asking 12-year-olds to stab each other?”” It is in my nature to make fun of horrific acts of absurd violence: making light of it makes me feel better. I don’t pretend to understand why shit like this happens, but if I can spin it into a joke then the world just seems a little less terrible. There are some things that, but for the darkest bits in us with no faith in humanity and a fatalistic sense of the world, we just cannot comprehend.
The terrible things I can comprehend, I find no humor in. I’ve never been one to earnestly poke fun at the disabled, despite growing up on the internet. Apart from the occasional slippage of the word “fag” as reflex in a particularly heated game, I find nothing funny about needling at someone’s sexual/gender identity. I never found the comedy in “shock humor” GIFs of 9/11 or some grotesque body harm. I’m by no means a saint, and will laugh at people falling down or birds being accidentally obliterated by a baseball.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but my formal training is a dual Major in Legal Studies and English. I attended the University of California, Berkeley from 2008-2013, with the initial intention of becoming a lawyer. There is no real undergraduate Law degree, so the school concocted a Legal Studies department to serve as a makeshift Pre-Law and Legal Theory class. Two and a half years into my tenure as a student, I had all but completed the Legal Studies Major, and realized with pressing horror that the idea of a life lived pursuing a legal profession was bleak and depressing. Having an allowed two and a half more years to complete another Major, I turned to the fanciful world of English. Stories made sense to me, had a narrative I could understand, symbolism I could analyze, and most importantly some kind of moral or point.
Law, on the other hand, for all the proposed rules and regulations, felt as subject to whim and chance as the most puckish of faeries. Yesterday’s decision that Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, better known as the “Slender Man Stabbers,” would be tried as adults is the exact kind of depressing legal development that made me quit the pursuit. Now each 13, the accused were both only 12 at the time of the crime. Regardless of what side you fall on in the debate between lenient sentencing and “tough-on-crime” policy, it is shocking to see people so young being treated as adults.
Especially when at the time of the crime, it is unlikely anyone had ever treated them like adults before. The purpose of a separate juvenile justice system is to have a differentiation between those who are too young to fully comprehend the consequences of their actions and those who can. It is the same reason why mental state is considered during criminal prosecution, and why an insanity defense exists. While there is no fully excusing these horrific acts, mitigating state of mind must be taken into account for the execution of real justice.
There are two sides to the issue, but it baffles me how two youths who stabbed a friend 19 times and were walking into the woods to go “join Slender Man in his mansion” could be considered of developed enough mind to stand trial as though they were fully grown. This is excluding the potential defense of insanity, which is still on the table. Regardless of the potential mental health issues, the maturity of the girls is a factor all its own, and should be the basis of the decision between juvenile and adult courts.
As far as that decision is concerned, the reasoning stems from two arguments. The first is that the nature of the crime was vicious and premeditated. Judge Bohren’s decision is based on the reasoning that “This was an effort to kill someone, not a mistake by hitting someone too hard.” The heinous nature of the crime is undebatable, with months of planning. It is reasonable in certain cases to treat a minor as an adult when they are close enough to the legal age of adulthood and also reflect a developed enough mental state to understand such a crime. I would agree that at face value, the mental faculty to plan and carry out the crime in question does reflect a state of mind that would warrant some leeway in the age one would be tried as an adult.
However, we cannot look at this in a vacuum, disconnecting the nature of the crime from the intention and delusions of the individual. We must ask the question, “Did their underdeveloped decision making capabilities due to age factor into the commission of this crime?” I cannot see a world in which that is not the case. I remember what I thought when I was 12, and while not criminal, I had some serious misconceptions as to how shit worked in the world. One cannot live through adolescence, witness the rates of self harm and destructive behavior, and assume that these individuals are capable of considering the gravity of their actions.
The second argument for an adult trial is the functional care of these dangerous individuals. As juveniles, the maximum sentence would be 5 years. They would be out of the system at 18, with no guarantee of psychiatric care. As adults, they could be in the system for 45 years, and receive not only care for their sake, but for the protection of society as a whole. This is an argument that I am slightly more sympathetic to. Given the appalling treatment of our country’s mentally impaired, it is a very real possibility that at least one of these girls would end up homeless, untreated, and dangerous. A function of the legal system is retributive, but the greater protection of society and the prevention of future crime should always be the main goal.
There is something fundamentally distasteful about locking a child up for more than half of his or her life because of fear. I do believe there are certain crimes that deserve a removal of the individual from society. I won’t say if the solution is life in prison or death; this isn’t an article about that debate. When someone proves they are capable of destroying another’s life in sound mind and without just cause, that individual has in my eye lost their right to autonomy. However, I will default to my previous statement, asking if someone at the age of 12 is capable of doing anything with a sound mind. The deprivation of over half of someone’s free life when there is a reasonable alternative system specifically designed for those who, by consequence of age, cannot make rationally developed decisions is unjust.
When dealing with such a nonsensical crime, the question of insanity always comes up. It is an often misunderstood legal concept, as by common definition anyone that is capable of such horrific violence is “insane.” The legal defense is different, and requires the individual to be unaware of the wrongness or nature of their actions at the time of their commission. It is based on a concept called “mens rea,” meaning the mental state of a person during a criminal action. It is used in conjunction with “actus reus,” or the actual action of the crime. As a basic example, shooting someone is criminal, but if my mental state is such that it was unintentional or that I was defending a loved one, then the punishment is either lighter or the action deemed justified.
So, while the two are clearly delusional, did they know what they were doing was wrong? It is a difficult question. According to the court competency evaluations, Geyser believes in the real world existence of Slender Man and Harry Potter, refusing to take medication as it would make her unable to talk to her “friends.” Diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia, the condition is devastating.
Experts testified that Weier had a delusional disorder, but that she was remorseful. The terrible and damning truth of the legal system is that such remorse serves more to show a knowledge of wrongdoing than gain leniency. It is sad to think that the one who shows more remorse and wants to get better would be judged more harshly than the one who does not, but keep in mind the purpose of an insanity defense. It is not to let people off, but to properly address humanely those who have no concept of why they are being punished.
I cannot say whether or not the two deserve to be treated as legally insane. I have not met them, read the reports, nor heard the testimony of experts. As outsiders, we often come to conclusions without the full facts of the case, touting opinions that we cannot reasonably backup with soundbites and half-baked assumptions. This is not me saying the two deserve institutionalization over incarceration. This is me expressing horror that a system designed to account for the mental state of an accused person would so grievously fail to do so.
Here at Dread Central, we cover horror. I will admit, if this didn’t have “Slender Man” in the title, we would pass it up like any other bombing, shooting, stabbing, or atrocity that happens every day. This is an entertainment site, and there is nothing entertaining about the harsh violence and wanton brutality of the real world. We prefer our action heroes and villains, ghosts and demons to war crimes and gang violence. I could have made this piece a little bit of fluff about how a case I referenced in a review had a shocking development and rake in all the clicks.
I didn’t because I believe we need a reminder every once in a while of what real horror is. For the victim, the horror continues in a lifetime of pain, both physical and emotional. For Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, they face the horror of losing the next 45 years of their lives. I am not saying that the punishment does not fit the crime, but that the accused do not fit the system. It is horrifying to think of a system so callous as to consider a 12-year-old entirely fit to stand as an adult. In a world where random violence is so prevalent, what truly terrifies me is that the system that I trust to protect and carry out the law would be so uncaring. That blind eye is scarier than any monster looking through my window.
Categorized:Editorials News
