Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short
The sentence outraged the victim's mother.
``As long as you're a good boy and you haven't gotten in trouble before, you can go ahead and kill your best friend and nothing will happen to you. That's the message,'' said Michele Carrier, whose 14-year-old son, Benjamin, died on New Year's Eve 1993.
Circuit Judge Jerome Friedman on Wednesday suspended the youth's six-month commitment to the Department of Youth and Family Services. He also prohibited the boy, who was 13 at the time of the shooting, from touching a firearm until he is 18 and from having guns in his home.
``Come on, what does that do?'' Carrier said after court. ``With drunk drivers, they put them behind bars whether it was an accident or not. He could have at least done community service.''
The 13-year-old, using his father's gun, shot and killed Benjamin in a shooting the court ruled accidental.
Members of both families said the judge explained his ruling by saying he thought confinement would serve no good purpose, and that the youth's worst punishment would be living with the knowledge that he had killed his best friend.
The name of the youth is not being published because he is a juvenile. He pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm. He was found not innocent in juvenile court.
by CNB