Late last week a judge denied Torey Adamcik’s request for either a new trial or a reconsidered sentence. Adamcik’s attorney argues that recent court rulings that say mandatory life sentences for teens are cruel and unusual however the judge disagreed that those rulings applied in the case of Adamcik.
Along with cohort Brian Draper, Adamcik was tried as an adult, convicted and sentenced to life for the 2006 murder of 16-year-old Cassie Jo Stoddart. The pair had bragged about the murder on videotape after stabbing Cassie 29 times. Draper was also a fan of the Columbine shooters, what I call a mutant and what Tumblr users call a columbiner.
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 
Have you seen the documentary “Lost For Life”? It’s on Netflix, and really quite good. Personally, I think only idiots say things like “well c’mon, even kindergartners know the difference between right and wrong!”, as if that’s the end all, be all of the argument and doesn’t just completely expose their own ignorance of how cognition works. Anyway, that’s the theme of the doc, and in it, this “mutant”, Brian Draper, is one of the main people featured, as is his accomplice. Whereas Torey Adamczik’s segments are unbelievably cringeworthy and angering (he accepts zero responsibility and acts as if it’s a joke that got out of hand and it was somehow all the fault of Brian, while his parents do most of the talking and keep referring to him as a “good kid”), Brian is clearly actually grappling with the weight of what he’s done. Brian accepts full responsibility, and actually provides some very deep insights into his role in the murder and the impossibility of true redemption (but the importance of striving). He also relates how difficult it was to finally muster the nerve to tell his parents “I’m not innocent…I murdered that girl” (his parents, like Torey’s, were in denial, and literally couldn’t believe their child was capable of such a thing, until he told them a couple years later). I’m not saying we should feel sorry for him, or that he should be immediately let out. Nor am I ignorant of the pain a loved one feels for a victim being selfishly and stupidly deprived of their life. My best friend was murdered by someone I knew. But in the only industrialized country on Earth that still executes people under 18 (in 2008, Texas was the only jurisdiction in the world that actually admitted to executing juveniles…28 of them, I believe…one can only hope they were all actually guilty), I believe that the message “revenge shouldn’t be confused with justice” should be understood better. As should the basics of cognitive development.
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Have you seen the documentary…
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You know it all already, so why look objectively at other perspectives? Because that’s not a good idea for a hack writer of a blog. Keep up the intelligent, objective work there, champ.
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listen Bernie Sanders, why dont you get off of Trench and get to work freeing all of these innocent convicted criminals that you are in love with. statistics say this, statistics say that, daggone it, you seriously need to quit staying up all night watching judge judy dude. your comments are so made up and antagonistic, listen, if you need a job Betty, i know a guy…..
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“Made up”? Hahaha. Do you always dismiss any information that goes against your biases as “made up”? That’s not going to get you very far, Jeff. Fun fact: a person can simultaneously have fun on forums sometimes, and also do actual work. Mind-blowing, right?! Jeff’s view: if statistics don’t go along with how you see the world, dismiss them. Because that’s how reality works.
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The problem with crime documentaries these days, especially the ones concerning the ‘wrongly accused’ or the ‘cruelly imprisoned’ are anything but unbiased. Not only that but they’re more designed to elicit an emotional response rather than an logical one.
For example “Oh that poor boy who was framed for murder because he wore black and listened to heavy metal” leaving out the facts that he had a prior history of violence, severe mental illness and animal abuse. “That poor man was framed for murder and his brother must have done it” even though he was stalking the victim and her charred corpse was found on his property and also had a history of animal abuse. “These poor children are spending their lives in jail but they said they were sorry” even though they brutally and repeatedly stabbed their friend, bragged about it on videotape and had an unhealthy obsession with Columbine.
So you’ll have to excuse me if I glibly dismiss any so-called documentary.
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You clearly didn’t even read my post. The documentary I mentioned doesn’t in any way claim that the two boys are innocent. In fact, it shows how one of them accepts responsibility while the other (Adamicik) makes all kinds of excuses.
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