Juvenile Sentence For Killer Kid
One of the youngest murder defendants in U.S. history has been sentenced to juvenile custody, rather than an adult prison.
Though 13-year-old Nathaniel Abraham won't see the inside of a prison, the judge said he must still wait until he's 21 before he goes free, reports CBS News Correspondent Jeffrey Kofman.
"We have eight years," said Oakland County Probate Judge Eugene Moore, "together we and Nathaniel can make the difference in his life and the rest of the children in our community."
Abraham will be released when he turns 21, whether or not he is rehabilitated. He has been held in a juvenile facility since his arrest two days after Ronnie Greene Jr. was fatally shot Oct. 29, 1997.
The case gained national attention when Abraham became the first youth charged with murder to be prosecuted under a 1997 Michigan law that allows adult prosecutions of children of any age in serious felony cases.
Moore called the statute "fundamentally flawed."
He said putting someone that young in an adult prison would destroy any hope of rehabilitation. And he called on state lawmakers to set a minimum age -- perhaps 14 -- for sentencing someone as an adult.
In a long, impassioned speech, Moore urged the state to devote more resources to making sure its juvenile justice system can rehabilitate troubled teens before they turn into adult offenders.
"While there is no guarantee Nathaniel will be rehabilitated at 21, it is clear 10 years is enough to accomplish this goal,'' Moore said.
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He added he hoped the tragic incident would serve as a "wake-up" call that "our youth are in trouble."
Speaking directly to Abraham, Moore said, "Your shooting and killing of Ronnie Greene has destroyed the lives of many people.''
Greene, a stranger to Nathaniel, was shot in the head outside a Pontiac convenience store.
During sentencing, Greene's sister appealed to the judge not to forget her brother.
"It don't matter whether Nathaniel was 11 at the time he gunned down my brother," said Nicole Greene. "Age on't matter, what matters that is he be punished for taking my brother's life."
Greene's mother, Robin Adams, says she hopes Abraham understands what he did was wrong and gets "God in his life."
Susan Peters, a social worker with the Department of Corrections, testified Thursday that based on the seriousness of Abraham's offense, he should receive a so-called "blended" sentence, under which he would have been sent to a juvenile facility until he was 21, with the possibility that he could have been sent to adult prison after that.
"What it actually came down to is my belief that this offense was too serious to take a chance that he might not be rehabilitated in the juvenile system, then at age 21 leave this court without any options," she said.
But Dr. Jerome Miller, a psychiatrist who testified for the defense, disagreed with the prosecution's recommendation for a blended sentence.
"I don't think it would be effective. I think it would be counter-productive ... I think it would be setting up Nathaniel for failure," Miller said, adding that any infraction could be taken as basis for imprisoning him at age 21, even if it wouldn't normally be considered a criminal act.
CBS News Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen said the sentence was not what prosecutors wanted and not apparently what the defense wanted either. "But," says Cohen, "it isn't unreasonable or unfair and it's clearly a sign from the judge that he's not ready to give up on Abraham. This judge is betting that a 10-year stint in juvenile detention, with therapy and supervision and guidance, offers the best chance to both rehabilitate Abraham and protect society."
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