"We're going show support to Chris, and his family and the attorneys," says Janet Sisk, director of the North Carolina-based Juvenile Justice Foundation. "It's kinda like it's coming full circle."

Pittman was convicted last year of murder in the 2001 shooting deaths of his grandparents in their Chester County home and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Defense attorneys argued that Pittman, who was 12 at the time of the slayings, was involuntarily intoxicated by the antidepressant Zoloft and did not know right from wrong.

Andy Vickery, Pittman's attorney, has appealed the conviction, arguing there were errors at trial and that sentencing a juvenile to 30 years amounts to unconstitutional punishment. The appeal also contends Pittman, now 17, did not have the capacity to form criminal intent.

Sisk and about 20 other Pittman supporters gathered Wednesday night at the state Supreme Court building for a candlelight vigil. Many wore buttons with a picture from when Pittman was 12.

Pittman's maternal grandmother, Delnora Duprey, was there. She said she just isn't fighting for her grandson, but also for others who have had their lives messed up by antidepressants.

"The medicine turned him into an animal," said Duprey, who said Pittman never even had detention in school before taking Zoloft.

People at the vigil talked to Pittman over the telephone, offering support for today's appeal.

Sisk, a Charlotte housewife and mother, says she was floored when she first heard about Pittman in March 2005, when Vickery filed a motion alleging his client had not received a fair trial because of juror misconduct.

"From that point, I said, 'Uh uh, no way,'" said Sisk, who began learning more about the case and organizing others around Pittman's cause.

Over the past year, Sisk says she has written legislation that would change the way children younger than 14 at the time of their crimes are prosecuted and sentenced in South Carolina.

Under the bill, for which Sisk said she's seeking a legislative sponsor, defendants would be eligible for parole or release when they turn 21, and teens with no criminal history could not be tried as adults.

Another provision in "Christopher's Bill" would require that a teen "who commits a crime under the influence of a prescribed mind-altering drug must be tried as a juvenile."

If children were taught "social learning skills," Sisk argues, behavioral medications like Zoloft would become unnecessary. "That's just old school," she said. "You had a troubled kid, you worked out the problem."