Michael Hernandez Murder Case Essay. Law Assignment.

Michael Hernandez Murder Case
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Michael Hernandez Murder Case The Michael Hernandez Murder case of his friend, Jaime Rodrigo Gough, is a legal question that touches on the rights of juveniles to parole in homicides, mental status during murder trials, and violence at schools. Some might disagree regarding the handling of litigation without parole and how the mental state of the offender made no legal substance, but what stands out is that the jury made a prudent decision that service justice for all the affected parties.There have been incidences of crimes and violence in the U.S schools. Cases of homicides among students in both primary and secondary schools in U.S are minimal; out of 55 million students between 2010 and 2011 in U.S primary and secondary learning centers, only 11 homicides happened during that period (Crews, 2016). During the 2017–18 school-years, there were an estimated 962,300 violent and 476,100 nonviolent cases that occurred in American public schools nationwide (Diliberti et al., 2019). Approximately 71 % of schools witnessed at least one violent case, and 65 % experienced at least one nonviolent occurrence (Diliberti et al., 2019). Diliberti et al. (2019) observed that violence in school is commonly associated with the use of weapons, on-use of weapons, use of firearms, and explosive devices. Most of the students who are found with weapons, with the exception of firearms and explosives, are commonly suspended for a while from the school or get transferred to specialized schools. In response to crime prevention, most schools cited insufficient funds, lack of alternative options of handling disruptive students and federal, state, or local polices that constitute disciplinary actions on students with special needs (Diliberti et al., 2019).
On the 3rd of February 2004, the 14-year old student, Michael Hernandez murdered his schoolmate at Southwood Middle School, Florida (Wilson, 2017). At such a time, Michael was an eighth-grade student. On that fateful day, Michael was found by a fellow student at the bathroom on the second floor washing his hands. Upon looking at the washroom mirror, he noticed another student in the toilet with blood oozing on the floor. He alerted Michael about the astonishing discovery; Michael responded to being aware of the phenomenon. The two students rushed to class and informed their colleagues, and this was followed by notification to school administration. The school initiated a temporary lockdown as the police were called in to unravel and deal with the mystery murder. The school’s response was appropriate; the lockdown was intended to preserve the crime scenes and possibly avoid panic. There is one area that the school failed to address appropriately, i.e., it was unable to communicate through the phone to parents and did not answer incoming calls during the lockdown. Security could not be an issue in a school since such incidence is unusual, isolated, and quite unpredictable. When we relooked at the earlier shown data, with over 55 million students in U.S in 2010-2011, there were only 11 cases of homicides; this indicates the rarity of such incidents (Crew,2016). Thus, we cannot conclude that there were security failures in Southwood School.
The investigations were commenced, and as a result, it was found the eighth-grade student, Jaime Rodrigo Gough, was the one who was dead at bathroom stall with his neck stabbed severally. The police were called to the scene; they discovered latex globe and windbreaker in Michael Hernandez’s bag. Regardless of Miranda rights, Michael Hernandez confessed to Jaime Rodrigo Gough’s murder.
Michael’s videotaped confession, admission of the offense, and trial evidence painted a chilling a well-calculated murder plan. He also informed the investigators about his earlier plan to murder another student the previous day before the killing of Jaime. The scrutiny of the case shows that the murder was strategized for over a week; the plan was aimed at murdering Jaime Gough and another unnamed male student. Michael admitted that on a fateful day, he convinced Jaime Gough to join him in the bathroom. One queer phenomenon on that day was that Michael had latex gloves, hat, and jacket; during grilling, Michael admitted that the unique attire had critical roles to play; the hat was to keep off hair from falling on the floor, the jacket was in...