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Boy, 12, Found Responsible For Second-Degree Murder Of Neo-Nazi Father

RIVERSIDE (CBSLA.com) — A 12-year-old boy Monday was found responsible for the second-degree murder of his neo-Nazi father.

A regional leader of the National Socialist Movement, 32-year-old Jeffrey Hall was shot to death with a .357 Magnum at point-blank range while he slept inside his Riverside home in May 2011.

Hall's son was 10 years old at the time of the murder and confessed to the crime on videotape.

Defense attorney Matt Hardy said the boy was physically and emotionally abused at home and was amorally violent.

"We, as a society, for the first 10 years of his life didn't do a damn thing to protect him. DPSS (Department of Public Social Services) was to his house, I don't know, 10, 20 times; didn't do a thing to protect him," Hardy said.

Hardy also says media coverage negatively affected the boy.

"A lot of places don't want to take him for counseling and don't want to take him for placement and for treatment, but this is an all-American story," Hardy told KNX1070's Ron Kilgore. "This is about prenatal substance abuse, which is a horrible problem that no one's paying any attention to. It's about domestic violence; it's about child abuse; it's about how those things add up in a life and what they added up in this life was a tragedy and a killing."

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Prosecutors portrayed the boy as a smart and violent child, who fully understood what he was doing. They said he even told his sister that he was going to kill their father.

Hardy plans to appeal the ruling. The boy will be sentenced on Feb. 15.

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