So my redneck and immigrant coworkers were arguing recently about children being tried as adults.

They shared consternation at the idea that a youth tried as an adult and convicted would be incarcerated with other adults as opposed to being put in a juvenile facility until reaching 18.  One mentioned a place that sounds basically like a prison for high school students, which sounds reasonable except maybe in the case the immigrant coworker mentioned about a 14 year old from Texas who was tried as an adult, executed, and later was exonerated.  Someone that young would do better at one of these high school places than a regular maximum security penitentiary, certainly, but kids who are bad enough to end up at a place like that are their own special kind of brutal, so would a 14 year old really do as well there as one might hope?

The redneck couldn't believe in this day and age that something like that would happen without the judge, jury, and district attorney's office getting purged and blackballed.  At first he thought it was some more fake news.

Well, turns out this was a real case from the 1940s.  Look up George Stinney if you're interested.  Actually it's a good idea to read up on it anyway; it's a good example of how a small town conspiracy can thwart federal law to maintain social mores.

"Oh!" the redneck said when he was clued in.  "That' I'd believe."

"What makes it okay in 1944 that doesn't let it still be okay today?" the immigrant asked.

The redneck had run out of argument at this point, having tried to call a bluff and lost the pot over it, but I'd like to provide an answer without acknowledging that such a miscarriage of justice is ever okay, because of other things that were said.

In short, it's not okay, and the redneck didn't even say it was.  He only said he'd believe such a story was true.

After all, such a thing has happened, and not just to George Stinney.  Separate juvenile court systems weren't established until 1899, and enjoyed a "diversity" of standards until some Supreme Court cases in the 1960s led to a modicum of uniformity.  One can still see some variation in laws and expectations from state to state when statutory rape laws are compared, as high school and college students sometimes like to do.  But even before the 60s, at least some of the problems were well recognized.  

So it's not that the redneck was wrong.  It's that the immigrant's rhetorical question that was a red herring.  Failing to distinguish the undeveloped judgment of a child from the malformed conscience of an adult criminal was a known flaw in America's justice system before the second half of the 20th Century, one that has received some attention though not perfect correction since then.

Nobody in the office that day was defending history.  But it can be educational to note who seems to be allowed to criticize it, and who does not, even if for the same reasons; and who takes on the mantle of gatekeeper in such a matter and who lets them.