Murder Trial to Begin for 13-Year-Old

It is a crisp fall night and the shooter stands alone, holding a .22-caliber rifle. He fires, fatally striking an 18-year-old man. Then he flees.

Two days later, police arrest a suspect. But when they find their man, it turns out he is a boy.

He is sitting in a sixth-grade classroom. It is Halloween, and his face is painted for a party. He is just 11. His name is Nathaniel Abraham.

On Tuesday, two years after his arrest, he is set to face trial as an adult on murder charges--one of the youngest people ever to do so in the United States. Conviction carries a possible sentence of life without parole.

Nathaniel’s jury will have to decide whether he was a cold-blooded sniper or a prankster whose errant shot went astray.

But this case is about more than one question, one boy and one tragedy. It has stirred debate over whether young kids truly understand their legal rights, why they commit violent crimes and when--and if--they should be treated as adults.

Nathaniel has become a poster child for both sides. Some law enforcement officials say he proves the need to get tough with kids who are a menace to society. But Amnesty International chose his frightened face to illustrate the cover of a 1998 report condemning America’s justice system as being too harsh on juveniles.

Nathaniel was no symbol, just another suspect when he was hauled into the police station, still wearing his Halloween makeup. There would be no returning to school that day.

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The suspect was barely 4-foot-9 and weighed 65 pounds.

But anyone who remembers places such as Jonesboro, Ark., knows baby-faced children and guns can be a lethal combination.

At age 11, Nathaniel was already well known to police. Though charged only once with a break-in, he had been a suspect in nearly two dozen crimes, including burglary, larceny, home invasion, arson, threatening classmates, beating two teens with metal pipes and snatching a woman’s purse at gunpoint.

His mother, Gloria, who worked nights as a lab technician, had tried unsuccessfully to get him into a residential treatment program. Days before his arrest, she found a gun in her basement and turned it in to police.

That didn’t stop Nathaniel, according to court records that provide the following account:

On Oct. 29, 1997, Nathaniel and a friend were firing shots near a garage with a .22-caliber rifle. A neighbor ran out and a bullet whizzed past his head; he yelled and the boys ran off.

Hours later, Nathaniel stood with the rifle as three young men walked out of a store. Prosecutors say he was standing nearly 300 feet away when he fired twice; the second bullet struck Ronnie Green Jr. in the head. He died hours later.

Nathaniel told police he was aiming at trees across the street. But prosecutors say he bragged to friends before and after, first that he was going to shoot someone, then that he had actually done so.

But what Nathaniel said--and understood--during more than an hour of police interrogation has been the subject of two years of court battles.

Police didn’t tell the 11-year-old they wanted to talk with him about a fatal shooting. Green’s killing only came up after he and his mother waived their rights and the boy was questioned without a lawyer.

Since then, his lawyers have maintained that Nathaniel, a slow learner with the reasoning abilities of a 6-year-old and the language skills of an 8-year-old, could not have understood the Miranda warnings.

Last year, when his lawyer asked at a hearing whether he understood what it meant when police told him he had the right to remain silent, Nathaniel replied: “Can’t go nowhere.”

Court Reinstates Boy’s Statements

His mother, Gloria, also said she would not have allowed police to interview her son had she known it was about a murder.

“They coerced him to talk and say different things,” she said last year. “I don’t think he knew the severity of what was going on. I was scared myself, and I’m an adult.”

The trial court judge threw out Nathaniel’s statement admitting that he’d fired the rifle, and said the boy didn’t know the consequences of his words or why he was being interrogated.

But the Michigan Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, reinstated it, saying Nathaniel’s “own words plainly indicated that he had an adequate understanding of his right to counsel.” The state Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

Nathaniel’s statement could be used by prosecutors.

And they had something else on their side: A new law.

Get-Tough Laws Aimed at Juveniles

Ask state Sen. William Van Regenmorter about juvenile crime, and he quickly rattles off horror stories: the mother taunted by a teen accused of killing her son; the widow who sat in court watching three boys smirk and joke as they faced charges of killing her husband.

“Law enforcement officers tell me quite regularly that they find that juveniles are much more cold-blooded, much more conscienceless than adults,” he says.

In 1996, Van Regenmorter, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, joined other Michigan legislators in passing a new get-tough measure. Among other things, it gives prosecutors authority to charge kids under 14 as adults for certain serious crimes. There is no lower age limit.

Though the law had been on the books less than a year when Nathaniel was arrested, Van Regenmorter isn’t troubled by his age. He says the law gives judges wide latitude so they can sentence very young kids as juveniles or adults.

But he concedes children as young as Nathaniel aren’t exactly what legislators had in mind.

“We weren’t really thinking there would be many 11-year-olds who would be charged as adults,” he says. “But there are a few . . . who, sadly, are so incredibly dangerous there needs to be some way to protect the public.”

Nathaniel’s Case Said Made to Fit Statute

When Nathaniel first appeared in court in leg shackles, his eyes welled with tears. His small frame was dwarfed in an oversize red prison jumpsuit; his feet didn’t touch the floor when he sat.

He looked like a scared child.

The decision to try him as an adult was based on two considerations, says assistant Oakland County prosecutor Lisa Halushka.

First, the crime: Nathaniel, she says, boasted he was going to shoot someone, broke into a home to steal a rifle--a charge the defense denies--then used it in the shooting. “He admits to being able to see people down there,” she says. “He was only firing when there were people outside.”

Then, the boy: “He had such a long list of police contacts,” the prosecutor adds, “and most of them very heinous offenses. . . . We decided this was the type of case that is exactly what the statute was designed to address--the serious offender.”

If convicted, Nathaniel could be sentenced as a juvenile or an adult. Or the judge could order a hybrid penalty, with a juvenile sentence reviewed periodically to assess behavior, and leaving open the possibility of an adult sentence.

But Halushka says all the talk of Nathaniel and the law has overshadowed the true victim.

“Something that is consistently forgotten,” she says, “is Ronnie Green is dead and Nathaniel killed him.”

Defendant Now Looks Like a Teen

Today, at age 13, Nathaniel is no longer the boy who barely peeked above the witness box. He has the size, look and mannerisms of a teen. And that worries his lawyer.

“All the heinous juvenile crimes committed in our country will cause prospective jurors to look at Nate differently,” says Daniel Bagdade, the court-appointed lawyer.

Bagdade says Nathaniel has never strayed from his contention that the shooting was an accident. “He’s telling the truth,” he says.

The lawyer plans to challenge claims that Nathaniel targeted Green, with a witness who will testify “the rifle was in such poor condition, it could not be aimed and shot properly, even by a professional.”

And Bagdade also intends to portray Nathaniel not as a terror, but a boy who liked sports, played on a baseball team and was well liked by teachers, some of whom will testify on his behalf.

Since his arrest, Nathaniel has been held in a detention center for juveniles; his mother and grandparents visit regularly.

“I like Nate,” Bagdade says. “I’ve developed a bond with him. To me, he’s an ordinary little boy, with the emphasis on little. That’s not to say he doesn’t have significant problems. He does.”

“He understands the potential of what he faces,” the lawyer adds. “He’s very anxious to get this over with.”