This Guardian article shed a little bit of light onto this issue.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/...-minors-us-law
I don't practice juvenile delinquent law, so a lot of this surprised me--that in the U.S., a juvenile can (and in this case they were) be interrogated without a parent present and without a lawyer present. They have to be Mirandized, but what effect does anyone think that has on a 12-year-old with probable mental health issues?
And it really shocks my conscience that Wisconsin law REQUIRES anyone over the age of 10 to be tried as an adult in homicide cases. Insane.