Girl, 6, faces trial

Press, 29 March 1982, Page 9

Girl, 6, faces trial

NZPA Washington A six-year-old girl in Florida will go on trial before a jury for hitting another girl with a stick and making her nose bleed. If convicted, she could, in theory, face jail or be fined. (The maximum for aggravated battery is 15 years in jail and a $13,000 fine.) On trial with her will be a boy, aged 13, who allegedly pinned the arms of seven-year-old Shirley Lynn Nickoils at a bus-stop while Nancy Jo Burch hit her twice across the face with the 60cm (2ft) long piece of wood. The decision to press for the jury trial was made by Nancy Jo’s parents and their lawyer, Alan Wilhite, who

said: "We believe in the jury system.” Unless the charges are dropped, or transferred to an arbitration procedure, the court will have the difficult problem of making up a jury of Nancy Jo’s peers. A jury of primary school children is unheard of, but so too, until now, was the prospect of a six-year-old going on trial in an adult court. Mr Wilhite contended that under common law a six-year-old lacked the “cognitive ability” to commit a crime, but Judge R. A. Green refused at a pre-trial hearing in Gainesville on Friday to dismiss the charge on that ground. Nancy Jo was at that hearing — nibbling at a chocolate bar. She left the courtroom in tears.

When reporters asked her afterwards if she understood what was going on she just sobbed: “No." Shirley Lynn Nickolls’s mother, Nancy, called the local sheriffs office after the confrontation, which apparently escalated from a shoving match between the two schoolmates. “I never thought it would go this far," Mrs Nickoils said. A police sergeant tried to get the two sets of parents to settle the dispute between them, but failed. He then took Nancy Jo and Ronnie Dexter to the police station, where they were booked, finger-printed and photographed. “It’s a very interesting case, legally,” said Judge Green.