[MRM]

It doesn't take a certain kind of evil to do these things; it takes someone with a serious mental illness. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be locked up forever, but I am saying you should deal with the problem straight on and not some mythical force of evil. Why this kid is crazy and what to do about it are good questions, but crazy he certainly is. Being crazy probably won’t work as a defense to his crime in this case. The kid is likely to spend the rest of his entire life in jail.

He will almost certainly be tried as an adult. Anyone over 18 is always tried as an adult of course. People who are close to 18 get tried as adults for serious offenses after a hearing to determine whether they merit adult prosecution. The rules are written so that almost everyone who is close to 18 gets tried as an adult if they commit a serious crime. In this case there will be a hearing, he'll be waived into adult court, and he'll be tried there. Sometimes kids don't get waived into adult court, but a 17 year old charged with first degree murder almost always does.

He will mount two defenses. First, that he is not guilty because he is mentally ill. Second, that even if he is mental ill, he isn't able to function mentally enough to assist in his own defense or understand what is happening to him, and is therefore incompetent to stand trial. This really isn't a defense, because it doesn't defeat the charge against him, it just delays trial until he becomes competent to stand trial. At that point he gets tried.

The insanity defense won't work here either. Most states have adopted a more stringent rule that requires someone to be so mentally ill that they did not know that what they did was wrong. Even if the voices in the guy's head "made" him do it, if he knew it was wrong, he doesn't qualify for acquittal by reason of mental disease or defect. By all accounts it seems the kid knew what he was doing was wrong.