Deadly hit-and-run in New Mexico brings juvenile justice challenges into focus

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Behind the wheel of the stolen car was a 12-year-old boy. In the front passenger seat was a boy who just days earlier had marked his 11th birthday. He was waving a handgun as a 15-year-old boy in the backseat recorded video of what police described as a deliberate hit-and-run.

A voice believed to be the 15-year-old’s says, “Just bump him, brah.” The driver asks, “Like bump him?” The rear passenger responds, “Yeah, just bump him. Go like … 15 … 20.”

The car smashed into a bicyclist on his way to work. The windshield shattered and the car sped away in the predawn hours that May morning.

Months passed with no arrests. Then in February a video of the deadly crash surfaced on social media. Remarkably it led police back to an 11-year-old who last June was arrested and placed in custody for a series of break-ins and burglaries in northeast Albuquerque. Police also accused the boy of shooting and wounding another teen, which prompted an investigation that turned up firearms and a bullet-proof vest that had been stolen from a police vehicle.

But the allegations of running down and killing a person were on another level, one seldom dealt with in New Mexico's juvenile justice system.

The 11-year-old and the other boys in the car, now ages 13 and 16, were arrested last week in connection with the death of Scott Dwight Habermehl, a father of two and a successful engineer.

Prosecutors said Friday that all three boys will face the same charges: counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person under 19. Prosecutors are seeking to have the oldest boy charged as an adult.

The spike in juvenile violence — particularly this latest case — has shaken the community, further frustrated law enforcement and added to the pressure on policymakers to reconsider the limitations of a juvenile justice system that wasn't designed to deal with children as young as 11.

Authorities say there's a perception among juveniles that they won't face consequences for violent crimes.

How are young defendants handled?

Albuquerque police have arrested numerous teens, most being 15 or older, in homicide cases over the last year. Legal experts and authorities can't recall a case in which someone as young as 11 has faced a murder charge.

Under state law, the 11-year-old cannot be held in a juvenile detention center but will remain in the custody of the state child welfare agency. The other two boys were ordered to remain in a juvenile detention center as their cases proceed, with children's court judges finding they were a danger to themselves and the community.

Santa Fe-based attorney John Day said New Mexico’s juvenile justice system was meant to intervene and get help for children so they wouldn't commit crimes as adults. It was designed with the assumption that kids this young weren't competent to engage in this kind of violent behavior, he said.

“Obviously when you have 11-year-olds who are being accused of participating in running over bicyclists and brandishing guns, that’s something that when they were drafting these laws was really not taken into consideration because it was a different time,” Day said.

There is a minimum age for prosecuting juveniles in 26 states, with statutes spelling out various exceptions, according to the National Juvenile Justice Network. But New Mexico is among the many states without a minimum age and state law allows for teenagers as young as 14 in some instances to be tried in adult court only for first-degree murder.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman says the streets have changed dramatically since 1993, the last time New Mexico's children's code was meaningfully updated, but the Democratic-controlled Legislature has failed to consider changes that include expanding the types of violent crimes juveniles could be charged in as adults.

Without modernizing the system and pairing meaningful consequences with behavioral health support, Bregman said things will only get worse. He pointed to a proliferation of guns and social media, saying it's out of control.

"That's how they all communicate. This is how they settle grudges. It's not taking a fistfight behind the high school anymore. They're pulling out a gun and shooting at an unsanctioned car show," he said, referring to a deadly shooting at a park in Las Cruces on Friday night.

“We need to have our laws catch up with the times,” Bregman said.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Saturday reiterated her disappointment that lawmakers failed to pass legislation to address juvenile justice and what she described as a crime crisis. She said lawmakers should expect to be called back for a special session.

How has juvenile justice changed in the US?

Before the creation of juvenile courts more than a century ago, children who were older than 7 were processed and incarcerated under common law just as adults would be. Younger children were considered incapable of possessing criminal intent.

Along with that history, the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention notes on its website that the juvenile court system also was established to provide positive social development for children who lack support at home.

Juvenile justice advocates say cases in which young children are accused of murder are rare but not unheard of. In 2008, Arizona prosecutors handled the case of an 8-year-old boy who shot and killed his father and his father's friend. He pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the death of the friend. Prosecutors dropped the charge for killing his father, saying it was best for the boy not to have to acknowledge killing his father.

Some advocates have pushed for setting the minimum age for prosecution at least 14, citing research suggesting children who enter the juvenile justice system earlier in their lives have more adverse outcomes than older teens.

Can children comprehend the consequences?

Before knowing the hit-and-run in New Mexico was deliberate, authorities had warned in a criminal complaint naming the 11-year-old in other crimes that the pattern of misconduct was escalating in violence. The document went on to suggest the boy was a danger to himself and the public.

Cases like this beg questions about how children end up in situations like this and what systems failed them along the way, said Amy Borror, a senior youth policy strategist with The Gault Center, a Washington, D.C.-based youth rights advocacy group.

Another consideration, she said, is that adolescents' brains are wired differently. Borror pointed specifically to the part of the brain that controls reasoning, rational thought and the ability to comprehend the effects of actions.

“That’s why kids and teenagers act exactly like kids and teenagers act,” she said, referring to risk-seeking behavior that intensifies while in groups.

The difficulty comes with figuring out how to hold someone accountable when they don't have the same level of rational decision making that adults do, said Joshua Kastenberg, a former lawyer and judge in the U.S. Air Force who now teaches at the University of New Mexico Law School.

“Kids in the criminal justice system are one of the more difficult questions in the law,” Kastenberg said. “Unlike adults, where you can simply say, ‘Well, this person intentionally ran down a cyclist in their car, they’re a danger to society.’ Whether they have anger management problems or they hate cyclists or whatever, they completely disregarded the right of another human being to simply live. ... But when you’re talking about kids, none of that sinks in.”