July 28, 2022
By Beth LeBlanc

Lansing -  The Michigan Supreme Court (click here) in a series of five decisions Thursday expanded state statute and federal case law prohibiting mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of homicide, further limiting the circumstances under which Michigan prosecutors and judges can imprison youth offenders for life. 

The decision is likely to upset many cases across the state involving so-called "juvenile lifers" who have, in some instances, been sentenced for the same crime multiple times due to successive federal and state changes clarifying how and when youth found guilty of murder can be sentenced to life without the possibility for parole.

In largely 4-3 rulings, the state's higest court created five additional guidelines for resentencing decisions related to youth killers, resulting in tense clashes in opinions between the four Democratic-nominated justices and three Republican-nominated justices....

November 17, 1999
By Keith Bradsher

A state jury found a boy guilty today of second-degree murder (click here) for a killing committed when he was 11. He is believed to be the youngest American ever charged and convicted of murder as an adult, in a case that has highlighted a national trend toward putting children on trial as adults.

The convicted boy, Nathaniel Abraham, was 11 years and 9 months old when he went out on a hillside here in this northern suburb of Detroit on the evening of Oct. 29, 1997. He used a borrowed .22-caliber rifle to shoot an 18-year-old stranger who was walking out of a convenience store, killing him with a single bullet in the head.

Nathaniel could receive a sentence of up to life in prison. But prosecutors said they would ask that the boy, now 13, be incarcerated initially in a juvenile detention center and reassessed at 19 and 21 to determine whether he had been rehabilitated enough for release or should be sent to a prison for adults....

Needless to say the prison system is not adequately address juvenile offenders. They are raised in the system.  

September 3, 2018

By Mike Martindale

Pontiac - Now 32, Nathaniel Abraham (click here) has spent more than half of his life incarcerated, first in a juvenile facility and later in adult prison.

And Abraham may be soon headed back to prison on charges of indecent exposure and assaulting police officers, the latest in a string of legal troubles that followed his arrest at 11 years old for shooting a stranger to death outside a Pontiac party store.

Those who know and care for Abraham have described him as troubled but also bright and engaging and say his problems stem from youthful mistakes and being branded with a reputation he may carry for a lifetime....