On July 28, 1999, 12-year-old Lionel Tate was left babysitting his six-year-old cousin, Tiffany Eunick, in Broward County, Florida. The children were watching the professional wrestling program WCW Thunder when Tate's mother called downstairs for them to be quiet. Roughly 45 minutes later, Tate reported that Tiffany was not breathing. Prosecutors said he had violently imitated professional wrestling maneuvers, but the medical evidence showed injuries far beyond an ordinary fall or childish roughhousing: extensive bruising to Tiffany's legs, feet, and neck, a fractured skull, fractured rib, lacerated liver, and a swollen brain. Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Padowitz argued that the force was comparable to injuries caused by a speeding car and that the assault lasted several minutes. Dwayne Johnson, then performing as The Rock, was subpoenaed during the case, placing professional wrestling at the center of a national debate over whether televised wrestling could influence children to copy dangerous moves. In January 2001, Tate was convicted of first-degree murder under Florida's felony-murder framework and sentenced by Judge Joel T. Lazarus to life imprisonment without parole, making him the youngest American ever to receive that sentence. The punishment became a landmark controversy over trying very young children as adults and allowing a murder conviction without proving that Tate intended to kill or understood that his actions could be fatal. In 2004, an appeals court overturned the conviction because Tate's mental competency had not been evaluated before trial. He subsequently accepted a plea arrangement involving one year of house arrest and ten years of probation, although later criminal conduct led to additional imprisonment.
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