‘I SHOT DAD’

The tragic case of a child who killed his abusive, neo-Nazi father

By Kristine Guerra

The Washington Post
August 28, 2016

Jeffrey Hall was unequivocal about what he wanted.

"I want a white nation," he once told the Los Angeles Times. "I don't hide what I am, and I don't water that down."

An unemployed plumber who used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border looking for illegal immigrants, Hall was a rising star among white supremacists.

He would often speak at rallies, promoting the goals of the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, with 46 chapters in 20 states. In a YouTube video of a 2009 anti-immigration rally in Southern California, Hall, the National Socialist Movement's regional director there, is seen holding a megaphone with a smiling Hitler emoji sticker on it as he proclaims the need for "white immigration" and a "pro-white" America.

But Hall's rise in the movement ended abruptly. He died in May 2011, when he was shot at point-blank range while sleeping on his living room couch.

The killer - in a shocking twist - was his 10-year-old son, Joseph, a troubled boy whose childhood was fraught with violence perpetrated by his father.

As the oldest of Hall's children, Joseph, it seemed, was first in line to get a glimpse of his father's activities, including shooting guns and patrolling the Mexican border for illegal immigrants. But Joseph also bore the brunt of Hall's violent outbursts.

On May 1, 2011, hours after a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at Hall's house in Southern California, the boy took his father's revolver from the upstairs bedroom where his stepmother was sleeping.

Joseph fired a bullet into his father's head, just behind his father's left ear.

As his 32-year-old father lay lifeless in a pool of blood, Joseph admitted what he had done.

"I shot dad," he told his stepmother, according to court records.

During an interrogation that lasted more than an hour, Joseph was allowed to give up his Miranda rights - a decision the boy made without an attorney's guidance and, some argue, without fully understanding what that entailed.

And as Joseph's statements to police suggest, he understood little about death and its lasting consequences.

"How many lives do people usually get?" Joseph asked police officers after they arrived at the crime scene, according to court records.

Joseph has been in custody since his father's death. In 2013, the boy was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to serve 10 years in a California juvenile facility.

Many child advocates and politicians think the boy's conviction was flawed. They argue that Joseph, a child with developmental disabilities, could not have realized the wrongfulness of what he had done - and could not have understood what it meant when he gave up his Miranda rights while being interrogated by police after the shooting.

Joseph's culpability and the issue of allowing children to waive their Miranda rights without any legal guidance are now the subject of proposed legislation in California, as well as a pending appeal to the nation's highest court.

"There's not a 10-year-old on the planet who ought to be in a position of waiving a constitutional right without an advice from an adult," said Scott Ballenger, part of Joseph's legal team, which has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review Joseph's appeal, after it was denied by the California courts.

Five years after Hall's death, Joseph's case prompted California legislators to introduce a bill that would provide children with some layer of protection from police interrogation.

Unlike some states, California doesn't have a law that requires young children to receive legal guidance from an attorney or a guardian before they're interrogated.

Introduced in February, Senate Bill 1052 could potentially affect hundreds of children like Joseph who enter the criminal justice system at a young age. It would require those younger than 18 to first consult with an attorney or a legal guardian before they're allowed to waive their Miranda rights - and before they're interrogated by a police officer.

The bill has been approved by the California Senate and Assembly and was sent back to the Senate this week for a final vote. "We have to update our laws to be realistic, to be sure that children have protection before they're aggressively interrogated," the bill's author, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, told The Washington Post. "Young people don't grasp what they're agreeing to."

SB 1052, if it becomes law, won't have any effect on Joseph's case, though it spurred the legislation.