A4 Albuquerque Journal Friday, June 17, 2011

STATE

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A4

ing death of his father. The boy was 10 at the time, too young even to be placed in a juvenile lockup.

We shake our heads when such things happen, our minds unable to comprehend how the young can throw someone else’s life away so callously by throwing away their own so foolishly.

And then most minds snap shut, unwilling to forgive, to consider any mitigating cir-cumstances, ready to toss the murderous child in the slam-mer and throw away the key.

To many, there are no sec-ond chances for kids with blood on their hands.

Not even among my special group of women friends — all of them mothers of adopted, sometimes troubled, former foster kids — is there much mercy to be had for a homi-cidal child, no matter how hard-luck and horrendous the child’s circumstances may be.

And that’s saying something.

“The problem is that I don’t know that you can prove that they will do it again or they won’t do it again,” one mother said. “The question remains, how do we keep the public safe?”

We’ve been asking our-selves that for years.

New Mexico got tough on deadly youths in the 1990s when the rate of vio-lent crime committed by juveniles had jumped by 47 percent between 1993 and 1995. In 1995 alone, 35 teens were charged with murder — including three 14-year-olds.

The public was outraged, fearful, insistent these kids were getting off too easy. Kids who kill were just as guilty as adults who kill, crit-

ics said. Legislators agreed, reducing the age limit in 1996 from 16 to 14 to prosecute juveniles as adults for seri-ous violent crimes such as murder.

But, by early 2003, New Mexico and other states qui-etly, slowly began shifting back toward at least consid-ering rehabilitation rather than condemnation.

The tough-on-juvenile-crime stance wasn’t work-ing, we learned. And if the youthful offenders weren’t monsters before, they most certainly became that in the adult criminal system — if they survived.

Statistics from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency show that youths in the adult system are about 34 percent more likely to re-offend than those in the juvenile system — and more likely to be abused while in prison.

Advances in the studies of the brain have also suggested good reason for treating youths and adults differently by the courts.

The average human brain is not completely developed until around ages 20 to 25, most scientists agree. The frontal lobe is one of the last areas to develop, and in the adolescent brain, it’s barely functioning at all.

That’s the part that deals with consequences and social awareness and tempers emotional or impulsive reac-tions such as anger, fear and recklessness.

And killing somebody.There are “fundamental

differences between juve-nile and adult minds,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote just last year.

Childhood abuse and neglect — and most accused and convicted young kill-ers have experienced both — further slow down brain development.

Which is not to say that half-baked brains, abusive pasts or potentially abusive futures in adult prisons are excuses for committing crime or letting a youthful offender go free without any consequence.

Nor is the juvenile justice system functioning in the capacity it should to rehabili-tate serious youthful offend-ers so that society is safe once they return.

Because, like it or not, these kids, all grown up, will return. A life sentence for first-degree murder under adult standards translates into 30 years. Under the juve-nile system, the maximum sentence is a commitment to a juvenile lockup until age 21.

Whether the newest youths accused of murder — Desiree Linares and Alexis Shields from the Hondo Valley, John Mayes from Farmington or Benjamin Hilburn of Belen — are bad seeds or broken souls remains to be seen.

But before we condemn them as monsters to an adult system that is even more monstrous, we ought to at least consider whether there’s still a child within any of them, dying to be saved.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.

Juveniles — one of them 12 years old — have accounted for some of the more disturb-ing homicides in New Mexico in the past three decades. Here’s a look at a some of the most notorious cases, how those cases were handled and what happened once the young offender returned to society.

John Hovey: He was 16 in 1984 when he repeatedly shot his par-ents as they slept in their Albuquer-que home. His mother had warned months before that he was going to kill her. He was sentenced as an adult to two life terms, plus 16½ years, then received an addi-tional life sentence plus 16½ years in 2000 for stabbing a paraplegic inmate 230 times.

Jason Kirkman: He was 15 in 1986 when he killed his father with a bow and arrow, mutilated his face and drew satanic sym-bols near his body in Albu-querque. He was sentenced as an adult, under an agreement with his attorney, to 12 years. He has been free since 1992, with no further serious criminal charges noted.

Mitchell Overhand: He was 16 in 1988 when he shot his parents, finished off his mother with a ham-mer to the head, then buried them in the back-yard of their Paradise Hills home and threw a party. He was sentenced as an adult to 40 years. He has been on probation since 2008, and his record has remained clean.

Adam McAllister: He was 14 in 1993 when he shot Ester Reed when she caught him and Jesus Garcia, 17, bur-glarizing her Albuquerque home. He was sentenced as a juvenile and commit-ted until age 21 and then released to his mother in Colonie, N.Y. No further criminal his-tory is known.

Jesus Garcia: McAllister’s accomplice. Because he was 17, he was sentenced as an adult to a life sentence plus 26 years for the same crimes McAllister was convicted of. He committed suicide in prison in 2006.

Michael Brown: He was 16 in 1994 when he told friends Jeremy Rose, 17, and Berna-dette Setser, 16, that he wished his grandparents were dead, angry that his grand-mother had thrown out his friends for drinking beer in her Rio Rancho home. Though he did not partici-pate in the stabbing deaths, he was sentenced as an adult to life plus 42 years.

Bernadette Setser: She was 16 in 1994 when she participated in the stabbing deaths of Michael Brown’s grandparents. She was sen-tenced as an adult to life plus 42 years.

Jeremy Rose: He was 17 in 1994 when he participated in the stabbing deaths of Michael Brown’s grandpar-ents. He pleaded guilty to murder, testified against Brown and Setser, and was sentenced as an adult to a life sentence.

Jaime Star Sedillo: She was 14 in 1995 when she shot Kenneth “Dirk” Henson dur-ing a holdup at an Albuquer-que bar. She was sentenced as a juvenile and committed for two years. She completed probation in 2001. Her where-abouts and any further crim-inal history are unknown.

Bradley Soza: He was 14 in 1996 when he shot Mario Her-nandez, 13, at close range as the younger boy walked with a friend to a sleepover in Albuquer-que. He was sentenced as a juvenile and committed until age 21. But once out, he continued a life of crime. He returned to prison and remains there, on charges that include armed robbery and fleeing a police officer.

Victor Cor-dova Jr.: He was 12 in 1999 when he shot classmate Araceli Tena, 13, at Deming Middle School after tell-ing another classmate he would “make

history blasting this school.” He was sentenced as a juve-nile and committed for two years. He was released in 2003, but in 2004 was arrested on drug smuggling charges along the Mexican border.

Arnell Van Duyne: He was 16 in 2001 when he blud-geoned his adoptive mother with a baseball bat in their Clovis home. He was sen-tenced as an adult to a life sentence plus 21 years.

Mister Saunders: He was 13 in 2002 when he repeatedly stabbed and then raped Melissa Albert, an Albuquerque neighbor. He was sen-tenced as a juvenile and committed until age 21. He was released in 2009 and has apparently remained out of the criminal justice system.

Benny Mora Jr.: He was 15 in 2002 when he helped Mister Saunders stab Melissa Albert. He was sen-tenced as an adult to 45 years.

Cody Posey: He was 14 in 2004 when he shot and killed his father, step-mother and stepsister and then buried their bodies in a manure pile on the ranch of newsman Sam Donald-son near Hon-do. He was sentenced as a juvenile and commit-ted until age 21. He was released last October and has apparently m,remained out of the crimi-nal justice system.

Ryan Stewart: He was 16 in 2005 when he struck and killed Glenn Lewis, an Albuquerque man known for his dislike of teen cruis-ers, with his vehicle. He was sen-tenced as a juvenile and committed until age 21. Stewart has had several brushes with the law since his release and is now in the Metropolitan Detention Center on charges including breaking and entering and assaulting a peace officer.

Where are they now?

HOVEY

MCALLISTER

SOZA

BROWN

CORDOVA

SAUNDERS

MORA

POSEY

STEWART

KIRKMAN

OVERHAND

Kid Killers, Adult Justicefrom PAGE A1

Police Officers’ Association president and top auto theft detective, posted on Twitter included:

n “Next person that says ‘imma’ instead of ‘I am going to’ I’m going to pistol whip.”

n “The Muslims are like Chinook salmon.. Life’s great till the SEALS show up!”

n And an exchange with another Twitter user that began with Dwyer’s post: “put this on (Facebook) as it needs to be seen. Boss ordered me to remove it or be fired. Love wrkin 4 a Dem.”

A link in that post led to an image of a Nazi swastika flag emerging from beneath a red, white and blue logo from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In response to a post from the other Twitter user, Dwyer responded: “I told him to kissmyass and it’s still there! Love workin for the guv-ment! See if I have a job on monday.”

The posts were dated between May 20 and June 4.

Dwyer could not be reached for comment.

Schultz said he did not learn of Dwyer’s Twitter account until Thursday morning. The chief said he was not the “boss” Dwyer referred to in his post, and he had not told the detec-tive to remove the swastika

image.“One of the things we’ll

be looking at is: Did some-body else (within APD) know about this, and if they did, why didn’t they report it?” he said. “It may be that another supervisor could get caught up in all this.”

Regarding his MySpace page, Dwyer told Schultz that he had forgotten about it and hadn’t posted anything on it in nearly four years. He was not disciplined for those posts.

In neither case does he identify himself as a city employee.

Earlier this year, APD instituted a comprehensive social media policy after officers’ inappropriate com-ments were discovered on different sites.

For example, Economidy, who was involved in the fatal shooting of a suspect earli-er this year, had posted his job description as “human waste disposal” on his Face-book page.

Economidy, who identified himself on Facebook as a city employee, was suspend-ed four days and reassigned to a lower profile beat.

Dwyer’s name has also come up in the midst of another controversy, one that he mentioned on his Twitter account.

APD criminal and Inter-nal Affairs investigators are looking into how a vehicle

identification number plate from a truck once owned by Dwyer ended up on a truck owned by former APD cop and wife-killing suspect Levi Chavez.

That truck, which Chavez had reported stolen, was seized in Mexico on Feb. 6 after a traffic stop.

Dwyer’s truck had been totaled in a 2008 crash on I-25 and had been sold at auction by his insurance company.

On June 4, the same day a story about the VIN plate situation appeared in the Journal, Dwyer posted on his Twitter account: “So frustrated with liberal lying media.”

Chavez, who was charged in April with Tera Chavez’s murder in Valencia County, had reported his F-250 stolen from the couple’s Los Lunas home in October 2007. Later that month, Tera Chavez was found in the home, dead of a gunshot wound from her husband’s APD-issued pistol.

According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Levi by his wife’s family, Tera Chavez was trying to report to authorities that her husband and his “cop bud-dies” had staged the theft of Levi’s truck.

Cop’s Posts Alarm APDfrom PAGE A1

Shown is a screen-capture image from Albuquerque Police Department Detective Pete Dwyer’s Twitter page. The department is looking into Dwyer’s postings on the social net-working website.

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