Boy on Trial For Killing Neo-Nazi Father

Joseph Hall was ten when he shot his father, who allegedly beat him

A trial beginning in California on Monday will try to assess what exactly happened just before dawn on May 1, 2011, when 10-year-old Joseph Hall went to his family's living room armed with a revolver, pointed it at his father's head, who was sleeping on the couch, and shot and killed him, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Joseph's exact motive for the shooting is complicated not only by his age, but the fact that his father, Jeff Hall, was a neo-Nazi. As the Times is reporting, the prosecutor, Michael Soccio, believes the child's actions have nothing to do with Nazism, but rather because his father punished and spanked him a day before the killing.