A DEFENSE attorney in California plans to argue in court that a 14-year-old client should not be tried as an adult because the brains of teens have not yet matured enough to make them fully responsible for bad actions.

Brandon McInerney is charged with fatally shooting 15-year-old Larry King as the two were in English class at the E.O. Green School in Oxnard, Calif., on the morning of Feb. 12. McInerney is charged with first-degree murder and local prosecutors will ask that he be tried as an adult.

On their side of the case, prosecutors say they have evidence that McInerney planned the fatal attack by taking a gun to school.

William Quest who is defending McInerney argues that the teen was not capable of forming intent, basically because his brain -- and the brains of most teens -- try to process too many conflicting signals.

The cutting-edge science that Quest plans to use to bolster his defense says that the prefrontal cortex of teens and adolescents has too many connections. These excess synapses shout for attention in the gray matter of young people. As human brains mature the excess connections decline and the conflicting blare of input can be managed better.

Mental and emotional maturity, according to Quest's science experts, does not generally occur until people are somewhere in their 20s.

Science plays an inescapable role in court cases. There was a time when fingerprint technology was new and untested. In more recent decades DNA evidence has become an invaluable tool for investigators.

It is not clear what role this new research regarding brain maturity may play in influencing the judicial process.

In the end, however, judges and juries will still be left to consider what was going through a defendant's mind at the time a crime was committed. The testimony of witnesses, victims and the defendants themselves will weigh heavily in those decisions.

The brains, maturity and thought processes of the jurists may be the most important factor in these cases.