The 10-year-old New Mexico boy lived in an abusive, filthy home and had tried desperately to get help to stop the beatings he and his younger siblings had for years faced at the hands of their abusive father, his attorney says.
Then, one day in 2009, prosecutors say, he put a gun to the head of his 250-pound father and killed him at their Belen, N.M., home.
After years of stops and starts, the boy is scheduled to face a jury this month for first-degree murder in a rare prosecution expected to highlight the debate over whether children that young are capable of the pre-meditation required for such a serious charge. Experts say the boy, now 14 and living in Oklahoma, is just one of a handful of very young children in the nation's history to face such a conviction.
"I've been practicing law for 20 years and this is the saddest case I've ever seen," said the boy's attorney, William J. Cooley. "I don't know why this is even going to court."
Lemuel L. Martinez, 13th Judicial District Attorney, declined to talk about the case with The Associated Press. But he defended the decision to pursue the first-degree murder charge. "We are going to court because we believe we have enough evidence to meet the burden of proof," Martinez said.
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