Boy Killer Is Sentenced to Juvenile Center

PONTIAC, Mich. —  One of the youngest murderers in U.S. history, a boy who shot a stranger at age 11, was spared life in prison Thursday and sent to a juvenile detention center until he turns 21.

Judge Eugene Moore said that the tough 1997 Michigan law that allowed Nathaniel Abraham to be prosecuted as an adult is “fundamentally flawed” and that the boy has a chance of being rehabilitated.

He said the case was a wake-up call “that our youth are in trouble.”

“I urge the Legislature to lean toward improving the resources and programs within the juvenile justice system rather than diverting more youth into an already failed adult system,” Moore said.

Nathaniel, who turns 14 next week, did not speak at the hearing. He turned around and looked at his mother and other relatives when he entered the courtroom but showed no emotion when the judge passed sentence.

Prosecutors had argued it would be impossible to know whether the boy is rehabilitated by age 21.

“Why bind your hands? It doesn’t make sense,” prosecutor Lisa Halushka told the judge.

A defense attorney said he had to explain to the boy what had happened.

Nathaniel was the first youth charged with first-degree murder under the 1997 law, which allows children of any age to be prosecuted as adults for serious offenses.

He was convicted in November of second-degree murder for shooting Ronnie Greene Jr., 18, outside a Pontiac convenience store in 1997 with a stolen rifle from about 70 yards away.