Judge David Lowy set a status hearing for Dec. 22 to discuss sentencing of a 14 year old who has been accused of raping and killing his high school math teacher at the age of 14. Philip Chism, the teenager, followed his algebra teacher, Colleen Ritzer, into a school bathroom, strangled her, stabbed her at least 16 times and raped her. Chism, now 16, was convicted of a raping Ritzer inside the bathroom but was acquitted of a second rape, committed with a tree branch in woods near the school where Chism put her body. Chism was tried as an adult. He faces life in prison on the first-degree murder charge. As a juvenile, he cannot receive a life sentence without parole following decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Adults convicted of first-degree murder in Massachusetts automatically receive life without parole.During the trial, his lawyer admitted Chism killed Ritzer, but said he was suffering from severe mental illness and was not criminally responsible for his actions. A psychiatrist who testified for the defense said Chism was hearing voices and in the throes of a psychotic episode when he killed Ritzer.
I think that, obviously he was guilty and what he did was completely out of the ordinary. I don’t think that this changes the world all that much, but I do think that it changes the most extreme cases, and also might change how insane some people are, even at such a young age.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/15/massachusetts-teen-philip-chism-convicted-murder-rape-in-killing-his-high/
