John Caudle is a liar. According to a recent Denver Post article, the 15-year-old child accused of killing his mother and stepfather in an October 2009 shooting lied in a confession to a fellow inmate. And prosecutors are using the details of that testimony to imply that allegations Caudle was abused can’t be trusted.

…youth-detention resident Malouff went further and said Caudle had told her he was whipped with wire and burned with cigarettes. Prosecutors noted, however, that Caudle also told Malouff lies, including that he had used a shotgun in the killings.

Malouff testified that prosecutors agreed to only charge her as a juvenile rather than an adult in connection with the death of her 7-month-old son in exchange for detailing Caudle’s confession to her.

What The Post article doesn’t say is that abused children often lie as a defense mechanism. Their lives are lived in a lie. That lie is that everything is perfectly normal. Caudle told the same inmate that he also killed a dog on the property. When investigators visited the crime scene they found no evidence that a dog had been killed and, in fact, Caudle had finished his chores and left food and water for the family pets before he ran away.

So why do abused children lie? Most often it’s because they’re afraid of what their abusers might do if they tell the truth. In this case, it seems to be because Caudle was afraid of what might happen to him in jail. He wanted to look tough and mean because that’s what you have to be to survive in prison. But children who feed the family pet before fleeing from a crime scene are not sociopaths. They’re just trying to survive an abusive situation the only way they can. And that’s all Caudle is trying to do now, survive an abusive system.

The same Denver Post article details how Caudle tried to run away in 2006, but was prevented from doing so by the County Sheriff. But, again, the Post article doesn’t tell the whole story because Caudle’s friends and family have testified that they also tried to have him removed, but the Department of Human Services was not empowered to act if there wasn’t an immediate threat to his life.

So here’s the point: The parents that were supposed to care for John Caudle; the family that tried to rescue him; the system that was supposed to protect him; the government that was supposed to uphold his rights as a child all failed or abused him. And, now, that same system–the same government–that failed John Caudle as a child is attempting to prosecute him as an adult.

Reality check, people: IF CAUDLE WERE AN ADULT NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED. How does it make any sense to treat John Caudle as an adult now?