A teenager who killed his mother and seriously wounded his father in an incident caused apparently by a videogame has been ruled sane enough to face trial by an American judge. The defense his lawyer team put up, based on the fact that he was made insane by a supposed addiction to the shooter Halo 3, has been rejected as being wholly inappropriate.
Daniel Petric is now 17 and, in October 2007, he opened a locked box in his house, allegedly taking out a copy of
Halo 3, as well as a handgun. He then went to “surprise” his parents by shooting them both. As he was arrested by the police arriving on the scene, he claimed that everything he did was caused by the fact that his parents would not allow him to play his favorite videogame - Halo 3.
Microsoft, who is the publisher of the Xbox 360 title developed by
Bungie, offered little comment on the case other than saying “We are aware of the situation and it is a tragic case.”
Judge Dave Berta decided that Daniel Petric would be put to trial as an adult, which could lead him to spending the rest of his life in jail, where the prison authorities are unlikely to allow him to play Halo 3. If his insanity defense had been admitted, he would have been able to spend his prison sentence in a juvenile detention center.
It's nice to see that a judge easily saw through the argument that painted the teenager as insane due to his addiction to Halo 3. After all, no serious studies have managed to link increased aggressiveness to videogames, while controlling all the other factors and if anyone is to blame for violence, it's always the person and not the variables influencing them. A small step for the legal system, but a big step for videogames.
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