Boy facing murder rap for shooting dead his neo-Nazi father when he was TEN - Daily Mail

• Joseph Hall killed his father Jeff with a shot to the head as he slept
• The boy had attended rallies with his father where they would perform Nazi salutes
  

By Associated Press Reporter

PUBLISHED: 04:36 EST, 30 October 2012 | UPDATED: 05:36 EST, 30 October 2012

A boy who, aged ten, shot dead his neo-Nazi father as he slept should not be jailed as he thought it was 'the right thing to do', his lawyers have argued.

Prosecutors want Joseph Hall, now 12, jailed for murder, citing a history of violent behaviour including choking a teacher with a telephone cord. He would become one of the youngest people in a U.S. correctional facility.

But the boy's attorney says that he cannot be held responsible as he believed he was doing 'the right thing' by executing his 32-year-old father Jeff in Riverside County, California.

Uniform: Jeff Hall seen after a skirmish during a conference of the National Socialist Movement in Pemberton, New Jersey on April 15, 2011

Just ten when he was arrested for the killing in May last year, the small, blond child told police he pulled the gun from a closet and killed Jeff Hall - an unemployed regional leader of the National Socialist Movement who headed rallies at a synagogue.

'In reality, sometimes kids - just like all of us - do things because they want to, and he decided, as he put it, it was time to end the father-son thing,' said Michael Soccio, chief deputy district attorney.

'This child started at five years old being expelled from school for violence. His violence started way before his dad ever joined any Nazi party.'

The boy's public defender, Matthew Hardy, told the New York Times his client has neurological and psychological problems and was exposed to neo-Nazi 'conditioning' at home.

'He's been conditioned to violence,' Hardy told the newspaper. 'You have to ask yourself: Did this kid really know that this act was wrong based on all those things?'

Mr Hall, who had Nazi tattoos on his head, took Joseph to rallies where they performed Nazi salutes together. They also went on night-time 'patrols' by the Mexican border wearing night-vision goggles to help them 'detain illegal immigrants'.

Deadly: A .357 snub nosed revolver like the one used in the killing

Opening statements are expected to begin today in the two-week trial of the boy, who is not being charged as an adult.

Hall, who said he believed in a white breakaway nation, ran for a seat on the local water board in 2010 in a move that disturbed many residents in the recession-battered suburbs southeast of Los Angeles.

The day before his death, he held a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at his home.

Hall had previously taken the boy - his eldest of five children - on a U.S.-Mexico border patrol trip and showed him how to use a gun, according to papers filed by police against the boy's stepmother alleging child endangerment and criminal storage of a gun.

Last year, the boy told investigators he went downstairs and shot his father before returning upstairs and hiding the gun under his bed, according to court documents.

He told authorities he thought his father was going to leave his stepmother, and he didn't want the family to split up, Soccio said.

The boy's stepmother told authorities that Hall had hit, kicked and yelled at his son for being too loud or getting in the way.

Hall and the boy's biological mother had previously slugged through a divorce and custody dispute in which each had accused the other of child abuse.

Kathleen M. Heide, a professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa who wrote Why Kids Kill Parents said 16 cases of children aged ten and under killing their parents were documented between 1996 and 2007.

Heide also said parenting and home life would undoubtedly play a role in the case.

'It would be inaccurate to say who the child's parents are is superfluous,' she said.

'That is going to have an effect on how the child grows up, on the values that child learns, on problem solving abilities, so all of that is relevant.'

If a judge finds the boy murdered Hall, he could be held in state custody until he is 23 years old, said Bill Sessa, spokesman for California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The state currently houses fewer than 900 juveniles.

'We don't have anybody that young,' Sessa said. 'We have had 12-year-olds in the past, but it's rare.'

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