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The Child on Trial
Description
In 1929 Kentucky, a six-year-old boy picked up his father’s shotgun—and changed American legal history.
When little Carl Newton Mahan shot and killed eight-year-old Cecil Darnell after a fight over scrap metal, he became the youngest person ever tried for murder in the United States.
Reporters packed the Knott County Courthouse as the barefoot child sat at the defence table, playing with a toy car while adults debated whether he should spend life in prison.
Convicted of manslaughter and sent to reform school, Carl’s case forced America to confront questions about childhood, morality, and justice that still echo a century later.
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