The Sentence and The Controversy
The sentence was controversial because Tate was 12 years old at the time of the death, and his victim was 6. He was the youngest person in modern US history to be sentenced to life imprisonment, bringing broad criticism on the treatment of juvenile offenders in the justice system of the State of Florida.
Tate's mother, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, and the defense had turned down a plea bargain arrangement which would have allowed Tate to serve a three-year term for second-degree murder in a youth facility followed by 10 years probation but instead, his mother insisted on going to trial in hopes of an acquittal.
Read more about this topic: Lionel Tate
Famous quotes containing the words sentence and/or controversy:
“Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays cosily tucked away, hidden beneath the difficulty of living. If that difficulty is removed from time to time, death is suddenly there, unintelligibly.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)