No matter the seriousness of the crime nor whether it causes revulsion or horror in the general public, children are less capable than adults of planning their actions or predicting the consequences. The juvenile justice system exists because the United States has long acknowledged this.
Trying children as adults ignores this fact, destroys hopes before they have had a chance to grow, and tramples on the right of children to be treated as children, for no better reason than the vengeance of a scared public. Children are not monsters, but people who were less able to know where their actions may lead.
We therefore petition the President to grant clemency to children convicted as adults, and commute their sentences to the length they would have received had they been tried as children.