The judge who found a 12-year-old Riverside boy criminally responsible for murdering his neo-Nazi father said Monday that years of abuse and neglect clearly had damaged  the child’s thought process, but that she could not ignore evidence that showed he plotted the attack and knew that killing was wrong.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jean P. Leonard found the boy guilty of second-degree murder and for using a gun while committing a felony.

The youngster, who was 10 when he put a gun to his sleeping father's head and pulled the trigger, was charged as a juvenile. He could be held in juvenile detention until he is 23.

The boy’s father, Jeffrey Hall, was a West Coast leader for the neo-Nazi organization known as the National Socialist Movement. He was asleep on a couch in the early morning hours of May 1, 2011, when his son crept downstairs with Hall’s .357 magnum revolver and shot his father point-blank in the head.

 

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