Table of Contents
- The Incident That Shocked America
- A Clash Between Two Justice Systems
- The Role of Mental Health in the Case
- Wisconsin’s Harsh Juvenile Laws
- What This Case Means for Other Young Offenders
The Incident That Shocked America
In 2014, two 12-year-old girls stabbed their classmate Payton Leutner 19 times with a kitchen knife and left her in the woods to die. The motive was shocking to most people: the girls wanted to please Slenderman, a fictional horror character they believed was real.
Leutner survived the attack after hiking out of the woods. According to the surgeon who operated on her, “If the knife had gone the width of a human hair further, she wouldn’t have lived.” She recovered and returned to school in September 2014, though she continues to live with trauma from the incident.
A Clash Between Two Justice Systems
The case created a critical legal battle between two different approaches to handling young offenders. Here’s what happened:
- Juvenile Justice: Focuses on rehabilitation and treatment, recognizing that young brains are still developing
- Adult Criminal Justice: Emphasizes punishment and accountability, treating offenders as fully responsible for their actions
The girls’ attorneys fought hard to keep the case in juvenile court through a process called a reverse waiver. However, the judge refused their request. The girls were tried as adults and faced up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
The Role of Mental Health in the Case
What made the Morgan Geyser case particularly significant was the role of mental health. Geyser was diagnosed with:
- Early-onset schizophrenia
- Oppositional defiant disorder
Her attorneys argued that placing her in the criminal justice system would worsen her mental health. When Geyser received psychiatric treatment in a mental health facility starting in January 2016, her condition dramatically improved. The voices she heard began to disappear, and she started showing remorse for her actions.
This raised an important question: Should children with serious mental illnesses be treated like criminals or patients?
Wisconsin’s Harsh Juvenile Laws
Wisconsin stands out for having extremely strict laws regarding juvenile offenders. The state is one of only 17 states that allows juveniles age 15 and over to be waived to adult court for any offense—not just serious violent crimes.
This means teenagers could face adult prosecution for drug crimes, property crimes, and other non-violent offenses. The Geyser case brought national attention to this harsh approach.
What This Case Means for Other Young Offenders
Research shows that juveniles sentenced as adults have worse outcomes than those who stay in the juvenile system:
- More likely to commit additional crimes after release
- More likely to commit more serious offenses
- Higher rates of sexual and physical assault while incarcerated in adult facilities
The Geyser case demonstrated that punishment alone doesn’t work for young people. When we give up on rehabilitation and treat children as adults, we’re essentially abandoning hope for their recovery.
In 2025, after spending seven years in a psychiatric hospital where she received proper treatment, Morgan Geyser was released on July 17 with conditions including group home living and ongoing supervision until 2058. Her case serves as a powerful example of how mental health treatment can succeed where the criminal justice system alone might have failed.
This is why juvenile justice reform advocates nationwide continue to watch cases like this one—because the decisions we make about trying children as adults affect not just cases involving attempted murder, but also teenagers charged with drug crimes and other offenses.