When a 10-year-old kills his Nazi father, who's to blame?

Natasha Vargas-Cooper's amazing story for Buzzfeed is a heartbreaking account of another case of our system failing a child miserably. Here's a taste:

At the beginning of the trial last October, Joseph's defense team argued that Joseph had been systematically abused — physically, emotionally, and possibly sexually — leaving him incapable of grasping concepts like right vs. wrong, empathy, and death. "This is an all-American story about child abuse," Joseph's juvenile public defender, Matt Hardy, said in his opening remarks. "What are we to expect from the brain of an abused 10-year-old?"

The prosecution insisted that Jeffrey did not abuse Joseph. Though Child Protective Services investigated the Hall family 23 times, no abuse could ever be substantiated; they argued that Joseph's horrific act of violence was "inevitable" because of Joseph's long-documented violent behavior. Joseph's own grandmother, a retired schoolteacher, said in a television interview that she knew her 10-year-old grandson was capable of murder; she just thought "it would happen later."

It's another classic case of how to grow a murderer, only even more tragic, because the murderer is 10 years old.