There must have been some serious conversations in Vermont newsrooms on Tuesday. Good God, I surely hope so. Because the results were split, unusually: Our three commercial television news outlets and Seven Days chose to reveal the name and face of the 14-year-old accused in the fatal shooting of a fellow teen, while VTDigger and Vermont Public opted to keep his identity out of it.

There is no hard and fast rule in journalism, or in the law. But identifying a juvenile offender is generally approached with great care and deliberation. The Associated Press’ policy is to not identify juvenile suspects, but there are exceptions: “It may depend on the severity of the alleged crime; whether police have formally released the juvenile’s name; and whether the juvenile has been formally charged as an adult.”

At first, this case seemed to fit the AP’s criteria. The suspect was charged as an adult, a conviction could bring a life sentence, and authorities did nothing to guard his identity. In court on Tuesday, he was wearing shackles and a bright red prison jumpsuit.

Problem is, the circumstances may change in a way that would have argued for concealing his identity. The prosecutor, Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos, seems to be struggling to explain her rationale for bringing a murder charge and treating the suspect as an adult.

Vekos has been State’s Attorney for less than a year. She has more than 20 years experience in juvenile law and has served as a public defender in three states. Her campaign bio depicted her as “deeply dedicated to fighting for the rights of those facing heavy-handed prosecutions and to uphold due process for the accused.”

That doesn’t sound like the kind of person who’d overcharge a youthful offender in what appears to be her first high-profile prosecution, but the pressures are different when you cross to the other side of the courtroom. Perhaps she’s unaccustomed to the role and its responsibilities.

Vekos started strong. At the arraignment on Tuesday, she made what VTDigger called “the unusual step” of charging the defendant as an adult and asked that he be held without bail. She requested the hearing be closed so she could present confidential material, but reporters objected and the judge ruled against a closure. The hearing was ultimately continued to Wednesday.

And that’s when things unraveled a bit, or maybe a lot. At the Wednesday hearing Vekos withdrew her request that the defendant be held without bail because the state of Vermont lacks a juvenile detention facility. He would have been placed in an adult prison, either with the general population or in solitary confinement. Vekos balked at that; after consulting with the defense, she agreed that the suspect should be released to his parents under a 24-hour curfew.

Which kind of made me go hmm. Pretrial detention means the accused presents some danger to the community. If true, wouldn’t Vekos insist on confinement, perhaps with some accommodation by the Department of Corrections? I don’t know, going from “held without bail” to “no bail at all” seems like a retreat.

When she spoke with reporters after the second hearing, she had some trouble giving a clear account of her decisions. She called charging the 14-year-old with murder as an adult “a starting point,” which strikes me as equivocation. If you’re going to bring the hammer down like that, you’d better be on firm ground.

Defense attorney Marshall Pahl said he might seek to move the case to family court, where the defendant would be considered a juvenile and the proceedings would be closed to protect his identity.

Which has already been plastered all over television and the Internet, right?

Vekos would not say whether she would fight a move to family court. “Not clear yet,” she told reporters.

Not clear?

C’mon. If you’re going to charge a 14-year-old with murder as an adult, you’d better damn well be clear about it.

It seemed as though Vekos is paving the way for a walkback of her initial charging decisions. That’s a prosecutor’s prerogative. “A starting point” may be a maladroit way of describing the situation, but it’s true: the initial charges almost never feature in a case’s disposition. But because of the way she began the case, some news organizations chose to publicly identify the defendant. You can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.

The whole reason we offer special protections to juvenile offenders is because mighty forces come into play when they enter the criminal justice system. They can lose their freedom. They can be publicly branded a criminal. The course of their lives can be forever altered before they reach the age of majority.

It’s early days; we may learn that the kid was more than just reckless and a harsh punishment is merited. But the initial handling of the case, by Vekos and some media outlets, means that he has already received a share of harsh treatment even though we don’t yet know whether he deserves it.