Youth often tempers judgment. There is a place for leniency when inexperience or immaturity explains poor choices. Mercy fits the “boys will be boys” moments of life’s lesser infractions. But such grace should not extend to capital crimes like cold-blooded murder. Those are crimes of a nature so severe and so final, they cry out for a harsher reckoning.

Barack Williams, just 15 years old, now faces life behind bars after a jury found him guilty of felony murder in the 2024 robbery that left 19-year-old vape shop clerk Caden Martin dead in Charleston. Tried as an adult, Williams heard Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers read the verdict last week. His automatic sentence is life in prison – with the possibility of parole after 15 years.

Newsman Daniel Woods filed a full story.

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