Lionel Tate Case
Applying Theory to Practice: Lionel Tate Case
For this assignment I have chosen the case of Lionel Tate, who was the most youthful individual in the history of the United States to be sentenced to life detainment. Tate was playing at home with his friend Tiffany Eunick (6 years old). They both were babysat by Lionel’s mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate. When she decided to have some sleep, kids were playing downstairs. According to Tate’s words, they were watching wrestling on the TV and so, Lionel decided to show Tiffany some moves. Several times Kathleen heard noises downstairs, but did not pay much of attention, just asked Lionel and Tiffany to be quiet. In 45 minutes, Kathleen was woken up by Lionel, who told her that for some reason Tiffany Eunick is not breathing. As a result of Tate’s actions, Tiffany had more than thirty five serious injuries, along with her liver being lacerated, skull and ribs fractures, and brain swelling. In order to defend Lionel Tate, his defense claimed that it all was an accident, since they were just playing and Lionel inadvertently killed Tiffany Eunick. Eventually, he was found guilty of first-degree murder on March 9th, 2001. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
There are few main factors that are important and related to the given case. The first one is the fact that Lionel Tate was not able to understand the outcomes of his actions. Being only 12 years old, he was not able to differentiate good from bad and right from wrong and it appeared that he had an ongoing delay in his development as for his age. Thus, the first factor is Tate’s lack of understanding on the basis of his delay in development. The second factor was family disorganization. Lionel Tate, having a delay in the development was left alone with Tiffany Eunick, while his mother was sleeping upstairs. His mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate left them alone and that was totally unacceptable and incompetent. Tiffany’s mother, Deweese Eunick, said that she forgives Tate. In the meantime, she said that she blames Kathleen, since she was the one to fail to protect Deweese’s daughter (Cooper, 2007). The last factor is the fact that the family was socially isolated. That is why Lionel Tate was learning from the wrestling on the TV not being with no supervision from adults.
Finally, in order to prevent juvenile delinquency, the 4-H program can be used and it is consistent with the social learning theory developed by Albert Bandura. It is the biggest youth improvement and youth tutoring association that covers over six million youngsters in the United States. The main goal of this program is to decrease the level of juvenile delinquency and the number of high-risk behaviours by assisting with children’s development ("4-H National Mentoring Program", n.d.).
References
4-H National Mentoring Program. (n.d.). Retrieved January 18, 2017, from http://4-h.org/get-involved/mentoring/4-h-national-mentoring-program/
Cooper, C. A. (2007). Violence in the Media and Its Influence on Criminal Defense. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
Regoli, R. M., Hewitt, J. D., & DeLisi, M. (2014). Delinquency in Society. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
