Murder of Jeff Hall

Jeffrey Hall was the son of Joann Patterson. He was previously married to Leticia Neal, having two children with her, Joseph and Shirley. Joseph was born June 19, 2000. The two divorced some time after, after which Neal had twins by another father. In 2003, the twins were hospitalized for failing to thrive, resulting in Child Protective Services removing Hall's two children. Social workers reported that Neal's home had no electricity or gas, that there were maggots on dishes, and that the children were dirty, malnourished, and had bruises. Joseph and his sisters had been educated at home by their parents under the guidance of River Springs Charter School. ==Hall's neo-Nazi activity==

For three years, 32-year-old Hall had been having difficulty finding work because of the economic downturn in the construction industry. Due to his perception that Jews and non-whites were responsible for a thinning job market, he became a local leader in the Neo-Nazi movement. In October 2009, Hall led a group from the National Socialist Movement (NSM) in a rally near a day-laborer site in Riverside. They wore World War II-era Nazi garb. In a November 2009 interview about the rallies in Riverside, Arizona, and Minnesota, Hall said, "They're proud of who they are, tired of white guilt being shoved on their kids and multiculturalism. They can't see any reason for it." In 2010, he ran for election against an incumbent for the Western Municipal Water District board as a white supremacist, and he received about a third of the vote. In March 2011, Hall and his group of about two dozen white supremacists took to the streets in the affluent, primarily residential Claremont, Los Angeles County, sometimes called "The City of Trees and Ph.D.s". They had a screaming confrontation with counter-protesters of more than 200 immigrant rights activists, who decried the group as racist. Hall said, "We patrol the borders, we see the devastation, we see the drugs, we know the reality." Dozens of officers from several police agencies were on hand. Just 12 hours before Hall's death, a reporter from The New York Times was in Hall's home, interviewing him and members of his group. She also spoke to the ten-year-old, who showed off a leather belt bearing a silver insignia of the Nazi SS that his father had given him. ==Death==

Hall bragged that he was teaching his eldest son Joseph to use night-vision equipment and to shoot a gun. The son stated his motivation for the killing was an episode of Criminal Minds, where he claimed he saw a child shoot his abusive father and did not face any consequences for it. He also believed his father would recover from being shot and that the two of them could reconcile. ==Trial==

Despite his age, ten-year-old Joseph Hall was charged with the murder of his father. If convicted, he faced incarceration at a juvenile detention facility, although he could not have been held past the age of 25. Joseph's attorneys initially considered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. The defense argued that the child had developmental disabilities and was conditioned to violence by growing up in an abusive household. According to court records, Joseph was of low intelligence and suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In 2013, Joseph was found guilty of murder. Joseph was sentenced to juvenile detention until he reached the age of 23, which happened on June 19, 2023. In 2015, the California Supreme Court declined to take Joseph's case, letting stand a ruling that a 10-year-old should be able to understand his Miranda rights. The United States Supreme Court also declined to hear the case, denying a petition for a writ of certiorari in 2016. ==See also==