If they are juveniles, they should be tried as such.

Whether this should result in a different sentence if found guilty than if they had been adults is a different issue. As is the age of adult responsibility. Personally, I think a 16yo is plenty old enough to be expected to have mature insight into those sort of crimes.

That said, here comes the grey area. I would like to know "why" they did it. If there's a single element of "because they knew they could get away with it because of their age", then I think an adult trial seems appropriate. But that's such a hard thing to judge. Such is life.

Also, is it just me that thinks the forcing the mom to give the son a bj seems incongruent with the gang rape. Why would they want to do that after they had all got their rocks off? Was it really a sex crime? Or was it more about humiliation, and if so, what's the betting one of those jerks has pics on their cellphones? The cynic in me asks if the last bit even really happened. Although it would be a bizarre thing to make up.

Nothing to do and nothing to lose.

maybe. But I want to hear it from them

I suspect the only think you'll hear from them is, "Duh...I dunno".

yup. If that.

Rape is never really about sex. Rape is about violence, humiliation, and subjugation. Which, when you get right down to it, is even sicker than if it were about sex.

Sex crimes are rarely about sex. They are about power and control.

I don't actually understand your question.

These "kids" committed a very adult crime. They planned it, and worse yet, they planned it en masse, even to the point of bringing condoms. That alone shows that they knew what they were planning was wrong because they hoped to conceal it, all before actually committing it.

The real answers will not come from asking these horrible, horrible wastes of flesh why they did what they did, but it would instead come from asking them why what they did was wrong. They don't seem all too smart, so I can imagine that it wouldn't be hard to get them to answer that question before they realize why it was being asked (to establish that they knew better). And I guarantee you that they knew better.

Rape is a violent crime that damages its victims beyond repair, and the damage increases exponentially by the number of attackers. I was raped in 1993, 14 years ago, and I will never be the same again. The guy who raped me for damn sure knew better, and I think that any child over the age of 8 who wasn't raised by wolves does, as well.

I'm firmly in the camp of removing these monsters from society for good, never to see the light of day again. What they did is indicative of something gone wrong deep in the moral wiring of them, and I don't believe that there is any fixing that kind of aberrant behavior. I also don't see the point in locking people up for life. Lethal injection, electric chair, hanging by a noose, whatever is cheapest. I don't think my tax dollars should be used to warehouse consciousless monsters who, if they were to escape, would only create more victims all over again.

Oh that is priceless.

But, it really is unfair to robots.

Now someone around here is really making sense. But I think they should have to live for awhile as scarred as their victims.

Again, if you have no arms, the chances of you actually forcing yourself on someone else with a gun are diminished.
Knowing why they did this serves no purpose. It is what it is, an extemporaneous circumstance. It's not like they were merely rebelling against society or their parents, they were rebelling against any human concept they've ever had, and let them keep on keepin' on. Just minus a few arms.
Let them keep rollin'............................
They could impress each other with the make and model of their new wheelchairs.

I'd line each of them up on the top of a hill with their hands cuffed behind their backs. I'd nail their balls to a stump, and then kick the stump over so it rips their nuts off as it rolls down the hill. Then I'd torture them for a day or two until they begged me to die. And then I'd like them up and mow them down with a machine gun.

Yeah.. they are the sick ones.