PONTIAC, Mich. -- In a case that stirred fierce debate over how to handle juvenile offenders, one of the nation's youngest murder defendants was convicted of second-degree murder for the shooting of a stranger.
Thirteen-year-old Nathaniel Abraham now awaits a judgment on whether he will be sentenced as an adult or a child for a crime committed when he was 11 years old."I can honestly say, he doesn't understand," Daniel Bagdade, one of his attorneys, said Tuesday after an hourlong visit with Nathaniel in jail. "He was in some shock, and I don't think he fully understood what happened."
After deliberating for 18 hours over four days, a jury returned the conviction Tuesday. Nathaniel was acquitted of first-degree murder, which could have sent him to prison for life with no chance of parole.
Judge Eugene Arthur Moore now will weigh reports from psychologists and staff at the juvenile facility before sentencing the Pontiac boy on Dec. 14.
Nathaniel could get a maximum of life in prison with a chance of parole, or he could be sentenced as a juvenile to time already served or held until his 21st birthday.
Prosecutors said they would recommend a blended sentence, keeping him imprisoned until at least age 21 and then reviewing his case to determine whether he has been rehabilitated.
Nathaniel, who sat expressionless while the verdict was read, was returned to the juvenile facility where he has been held since two days after the shooting -- when police arrested the then-sixth-grader at his junior high school, his face painted for Halloween.
"This case was about intervening on behalf of a troubled and dangerous youth who needed help and didn't get it a long time ago," prosecutor David Gorcyca said. "My whole intent was to not throw away the key on an 11-year-old boy, now 13. My intent was to give him the help that he needed."
Defense attorney Geoffrey Fieger said the verdict was "born out of anger."
"I think the rest of the world will scorn us and hold us in contempt," he said.
The defense had said Nathaniel was shooting at trees the night Ronnie Greene, 18, was killed outside a Pontiac party store. Attorneys said Greene was struck by a stray bullet that had ricocheted off a tree.
But prosecutors said Nathaniel had told a friend that he was going to shoot somebody, practiced his aim on stationary targets, shot Greene in the head and bragged about it the next day.
Jury foreman Daniel Stolz told reporters that the fact that Nathaniel was only 11 at the time "didn't make the job any easier."
But, "he knew the firearm was dangerous and that it could cause harm," Stolz said. "Ronnie Greene was standing there, and the gun just doesn't raise itself automatically."
Nathaniel's case gained national attention when he became the first youngster charged under a 1997 Michigan law allowing adult prosecutions of children of any age for serious crimes.
Some law enforcement officials said Nathaniel's case proved the need to get tough with kids who are a menace to society. But Amnesty International chose his frightened face for the cover of a 1998 report condemning America's justice system as being too harsh on juveniles.