Dahleen Glanton: Column: A 9-year-old boy should not be charged with first-degree murder, no matter what he did

I can't stop thinking about that little boy who is charged with murder. When I close my eyes, I imagine him in a courtroom sitting in chair, as described in news reports, with his head barely visible over the back and his legs too short to reach the floor.

A 9-year-old boy, wearing blue plants and a red-checkered shirt, appeared in a juvenile courtroom in Illinois on Tuesday to hear the charges leveled against him. How could someone so young possibly understand what it means to be charged with five counts of first-degree murder, two counts of arson