Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Nathaniel Abraham was just 11 years old when he found himself in the middle of one of the most controversial cases in the history of the United States of America.
nathaniel abraham was just 11 years old when he found himself in the middle of one ofr the most controversial murder cases in the history of the United states of america the case scandalized the country and almost everyone responded with outrage.
a murder case
but folks on nathaniel’s block his own neighbors well, they weren’t particular schocked .
he might have been little measuring no more than 4 feet and weighing a little under 65 pounds but he was also but he was also a thorn in the side of everyone inthe neighborhood
a danger to the community
he threatened one neighbors grandsons all the time and he threw at one neighbors house, an 11 -year old girl shareda similar sentiment because according to her when they both was nine nat had threatened with a gun.
so as nathaniel abraham’s murder case began to take its hold in the the center in the center of public counsciousness it became clear that his entire block had turned against him.
as disturbing as these allegations sounded it seemed like they were true all of his neighbors wanted him locked up.
exept one….
only one neighbor on nate’s block came to his defense when the cameras started rolling.
he didn’t try to downplay, or dismiss the claims about the boy.this neighbor was convinced that the little boy wasn’t the devil.
he was just a broken child who made terrible decisions, this man had also experienced aversion of nate that his neighbors hadn’t got the chance to see.
he wanthed the government and the prosecutors to go easy on the young boy why? because nathaniel abraham was an 11 year old boy charged with the murder of….
an 18 year old named ronnie green because , in the most controversial turn of events
the state of michigan was willing and ready to try him as an adult due to severity of his crime
and if they found him guilty ,if the prosecutors were able to get what they wanted
little nate would spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he committed when he was just 11.
some of you would say murder is murder regardless of age ,that’s waht makes the intricacies of this story all the more interesting
let me set the record straight before we dive into this case the true victim in this story
was 18 year old ronnie greene
Nate was a preteen who killed a teenager and now he had to face the consequences
so what went wrong?
we have to trace the thread back to the very to the very beginning .
Pontiac, michigan ; 1986
months after he was born his father left and never returnedthis sudden change resulted in incredible hardship in the family
because nate wasn’t the only child, there were 6 of them, his mother gloria was forced to take up two jobs to keep their family a float
she had two work day and night ,so she was never around and nate’s formative years were spent under the care of his older siblings.
Gloria was caught between a rock and a hard place between spending time raising her children or workingh ard to ensure they didn’t starve to death
it’s no easy dilemma,however this whole situation turned out to be the perfect storm for something dark within nate
with no one to keep him in check – nate became delinquent
from the moment he could walk he began to exhibit extremely antisocial behavior.
many kids show these traits when they were young , parents corrected and rooted out , but no one was arount to do that for nate.so it grew into something so ugly , by the time was 9 he had become a mischievous child with the rap sheet of a series middle-aged criminal
from the age of 9 till he was 11, nate had 22 police encounters some for arson, a couple of others for assault and several for braking and entering
out of those 22 at least five involved the use of a weapon ,one involved a 14 year old he beat with a steel pipe and the last involved an adult a buss driver
at some point he became such a problem in the neighborhood that the prosecutors would later reveal in court that a neighbor moved out of the block because of him,that same neighbor would also say quite prophetically
“ someday nate will kill somebody “
now , you are probably wondering where nate’s mother did during this period, at some point she began to feel helpless when almost every day there was someone knocking their door reporting nate’s lates crime .
one major reason why she felt helpless was because she had actually gone to the police for help ,she wanted them to intervene with her son’s situation
but they referred her to the juvenile court and when she got there they sent her back to te police telling her that her word wasn’t enough.
no one was prepared to help, nobody was ready to intervene
now , remember when i said nate was born into a perfect storm , there was one more piece left for the chaotic future he was now destined to have.
the 1980s was a very interesting decade in american history
ronald regan became president ,CNN becam a thing,there were those interesting-looking macintosh computersand then there was violence
widespread violence in major cities like new york and chicago however ,the most troubling part of the 80’s was the spike in the level of violent crimes committed by juveniles
between 1980 and 1994, the number of juvenile homicide offenders doubled and according to FBI clearance statistics
from that time frame the juvenile responsibility for all homicides in the country grew from 5% to 10 % the quick answer to why this was happening was the crack epidemic of the mid 1980s
in the inner cities it had become a plague and it wasn’t long before drugs got paired with guns and juveniles.
the progression from drug trade to gun wiolence isn’t suprising ,in fact many would agree it is natural and expected.
but how did kids get into the mix?
well , drug traffickers at the time found that children and teenagers made excellent recruits-better than adults,children worked as low-level sellers carries, and lookouts while working for less, taking greater risks and escaping detention
because at the time, no one would have guessed that an 11 year old standing on a street corner was a drug deealer.
and even when these kids got caught their age imlied innocence and it meant they escaped punishment.from the drug dealer’s perspective, these juveniles were beyond perfect
so ,it wasn”t long before these same juveniles came in contact with guns and began using them for their own protection, even if they didn’t need to
they aspired to use them,because guns had also become a status symbol for the drug -dealing lifestyle that these kids now wanted to be a part of
and that’s why just a decade earlier in 1976 records showed that less than two thirds of juvenile homicide offenders useda gun andby 1994 82 % of juveniles used a gun in cases of homicide
this was the background of nate’s childhood
and while there is no record of drug dealing activity on his juvenile rescords it wouldn’t be wild to suggest that he found himself in that crowd.
and that it was that crowd that enabled his truancy, where else do you think he got the gun he used?
his mother didn’t own a gun.
now as expected the government’s resopnse to this spike of violence ,gun-fueled, juvenile delinquency was to turn to the law.
so, as the 80s progressed, a growing number od states passed laws stipulating that kids under 17 could be tried as adults for certain crimes
it wasa weird way to deal with the problem ,because they weren’t seeking direct solutions ,they were just adding to the punishment
supporters of this law who happened to be civilians took to the streets waving banners and slogans that read
” adult crime, adult time!”
and by 1992 more than 40 states had passed laws for trying children as adults but no state’s version of the juvenile justice law matched the severity of michigan’s
Michigan -the same state that nathaniel abraham was born in, raised in and would commit his devastating crime in , set no limits on the age that a child could be tried as an adult
they called their law” get tough on fuvenile offenders”
in fact , when one of the state senators who pusched for this law was asked if a child as young as 4 could be tried as an adult , his answer was a resounding yes.
the stage was now set for nathaniel abraham’s crime and 3 years after that law was passed m in 1997 when 11 year old nathaniel abraham shot 18 year old ronnie greene
he became the scapegoat of a law that set the scene for the country’s most controversial juvenile murder trial to date.
on the 31 st of october ,1997 there was a commotion in Lincoln middle school there were police officers inthe 6th grade and class and they were reading the civil rights not to the class teacher ,but to 11 year old nathaniel abraham dressed up in a halloween costume
a day before 30th of october ,1997, an 18 year old boy named ronnie greene had passed away after fighting for his life for almost 24 hours
he’d been shot in the head by a single bullet from a 22 caliber rifle, as investigators scrambled to find out who this killer was , they discoverd that the day before 11 year old nathaniel abraham jad stolen a 22 caliber riffle and gone shooting outside
he shot at a neighbor’s house first , narrowly missing the man who owned the house, moments later he stood in a cluster of trees about 200 feets away from a convenience store took aim and fired a bullet
that would hit 18 year old ronnie greene in the head and kill him roughly a day later
while nate admitted that he was the one who shot ronnie ,he denied targeting him ,instead he claimed that he was only aiming for the light bulbs and threes
the shot that killed ronnie green was by his own admission an unfortunate error, the prosecutors weren’t bying it .
despite the fact that he 11 year old boy had never met ronnie green before the shooting they were convinced that he deliberately set out to kill someone that day
if you ‘re wondering what fueled the prosecutor’s conviction well ,they had eviedence that nate had spoken to his girlfriend saying that he was going to kill someone on the morning of ronnie green’s tragic demise .and that after the shooting he had had bragged about the kill he made to his friends.
with the backing of michigan’s get tough on juvenile offenders law the prosecutors received permission to try nate as an adult .
chargin him with first degree murder and several other felonies ,nate was arrested placed in handcuffs and he was sent to Oakland county children’s village – juvenile detention center in michigan while he awaited trial .
the arrest was deeply controversial,controversial enough to deeply divide the country along several ethical lines,while there were many unwilling to contribute to the discussion there were many more who thought that this was a fitting punishment for 11 year old nate.
there was an overwhelming majority escpecially in the black comunity who were against the decision .
Amnesty International reverend al sharpton and probably every major civil rights in the country protested against the whole affair.calling it a disgrace to the justice system that should protect children delinwuent or not
like i noted earlier they where trying to try him as an adult and if he was found guilty he would be sent to prison for the rest of his life
one laywer wasoutraged enough by the case that he shose to take it on pro bono at no cost Nate’s family laywer was named jeffrey fieger, he was a lawyer who up to thaat point had built a reputation for taking on most cases that lawyers wouldn’t take touch .
his most infamous past clien at that time was a man named jack kavorkian ….
also known as dr death
jack kevorkian was an actual doctor with the rap sheet of a comic book willain on his rap sheet the man had advocated harvesting the organs from death-row inmates while he was a pathologist hwe experiemented with transfusing blood from the recently deceased into live patients
he did a lot of bizzare unethickal things throughout his career as a doctor but the most controversial one, the one that got Geoffrey fieger representing him as his attorney in court involved assisted suicide in michigan.
kervokian’s story is worthy of its own video so i wont go dowwn that rabbit hole
just know that while nate’s situation was contrversial it was not new to Geoffrey fieger and immediately he took on nate’s case.he began aseries of motions and appeals ,that delayed the trial for at least 2 more years,enough time for him to prepare
29th of October ,1999
the murder trial began , Nate’s first appearance in court looked like something from a really dark SNL sketch
he was dressed in oversized prsion guard , there were cuffs on his wrists and chains on his feet when he was asked to raise his right hand he raised his left.
halfway through the hearings he would start sobbing and for most of the trial he looked lsot but prosecutors and the politicians who supported this law where hellbent on seeing it through to the end.
“i’m gonna shoot somebody”
in the opening statement the prosecutor Lisa halushka dramatically wrote down those words for the jury to read
she claime that this was the words 11 year old nate told to his girlfriend days before the killing.
as the trial progressed ,this prosecutor called witnesses who suppported the idea that nathaniel’s act was infact, a premediated murder.
according to the witnesses he had stolen the rusty rifle he used ,then practiced target shooting at balloons and the houses of his neighbors before the fatal shooting of ronnie green
later,the prosecutor would also note that nate had told the police contraditcting storiesabout the shooting ,which according to her
was proof that he knew what he had done and that it was wrong.
when it was Geoffery fieger’s turn, he argued that the shooting was an unfortunate accident,he didn’t dispute the fact that nathaniel fired the gun,but he insisted that the boy was not trying to hit anyone
fieger brought an expert marksman to stand as a witness who testified that it would have been almost impossible to deliberately hit a small target from more than 200 feet which was the approximate distance nate was from the victim.
and it was even more unlikely because the rifle he used was old and battered.
later fieger called on child psychologists to describe nathaniel’s mental health state,according to these experts, nate had an IQ of 70 and that at the time of the murder his thought process were like those of a 6 year old
fieger tried to prove that nathaniel lacked impulse control and the mental capacity to form the intent to kill.
however the prosecution brought their own psychologist to the stand as a witness and he rebutted the claim that nate couldn’t form an intent to kill
nate’s case was a delicate one.
if you were i nfront of the family of the deceased how could you say
” you’r son’s killer was just a child”
in a way ,there was something odd about the entire premise of the case because if nate was a 30 year old man who was examined by a court psychologist and determined to have the mentality of a 6 year old would a 30 year old nate still be tried .
but wait a minute ,the plot thickens because the constitution also stipulates that nate be tried by a jury of his peers
and we both know that there’s no way the court was going to do a pree -teen jury selection in an elementery school .so the jury that was hearing nate’s case were all adults
there were constitutional gaps that this murder trial allowed,when a journalist confronted the prosecution about it, they argued that the adult nature of nate’s crime and the severity of the consequences ofhis crime on the victim’s family was what justified the jury of adults
at the end of the day ,the truth was ,even though 2 years had passed since he committed the crime and nathaniel abraham was now 13, he was still too young to drive a car, to young to drink,and too youn to wote.
and as a direct c onsequence of this ,people still argue that he should have been too young to be tried as an adult.
in the final days of the trial the prosecutors began seeking for a compromise
no more the 1st degree murder chargeres.now they were asking the presiding judge,on nate’s behalf, to allow the jury to consider a lesser offfence wheter this was out of good will or because there was no victory in sending an 11 year old to life behind bars.
but no one knows,what we do know is that it worked
and on the 16th of november 1999 nate ws found guilty of second-degree murder ,which still made him the youngest american to be ever convicted of murder as an adult.
and there were three options on the table for the judge
the first was the harshest, a prison term of 8 to 25 years.
the 2nd option was a more moderate ,blended sentence and it would see nate go to a juvenile detention center
by the time he turned 18, if he was properly rehabilitated he would be released ,if not ,he would be transferred to an adult prison ,after turning 21 to serve the test of his 25 year senctence
this was what the prosecutors wanted, this is what they pushed for
but it wasn’t what the judge eventually chose, to their suprise,the judge went for the 3rd option,which was most lenient- nate would be sent to a juvenile detention center and he would stay there till he was 21.
after which he would become a free man and the age of 13 nathaniel abraham began what was supposedly a long road of rehabilitation.
the state had less than 8 years to rehabilitate nate would they succeed?
on the 13th of january , 2000 nate was placed in the care of the michigan department of human services for treatment and rehabilitation
then he was moved to maxey boys training school,and to everyone’s surprise by august of that very year ,he began to show signs of responsibility
throughout 2001,he passed all of his classes and he was praised for his academic perfomace in math , reading , and note keeping.
by 2003 , nate was described as a leader within his group, he displayed a positive attitude, took on additional work and followed directions.
at this point, his supervisors decided it was time to get him work in the real world ,so at the age of 17 nate began woriking in a goodwill store
and before long, his employers at the store indicated that he displayed a good communiction skills and that he was courteous with the customers
eventually on 18th of december and at the age of 18 Nathaniel earned his GED,the following year, he would earn his high school diploma and eventually he was just one year away from his release
so , was nate rehabilitated ?
had the juvenile system succeded in transforming the 11 year old killer into a functioning member of society?
he had shown consistent progress through the years and the world was about to find out if they had succeeded.
if you noticed , the reprots i relayed to you felt a little bit too clean, to sugary…
something was off, well you can blame me for that i deliberately omitted some details
Nate had an anger issue , to be quite frank, he had a lot of issues enough of them to require several disciplinary actionsn taken against him
nate had an affinity for getting into fights,even though he never really started them, he had a pattern of yelling at prsion staff during baseketballs games or any competitive sport nate had the tendencey to get heated .
he also had sticky fingers, and had been caught more than once stealing cleanings supplies to give to his girlfriend.
again , most of these missteps were seen as just that-missteps.
normal for any youth,what mattered he no longer participated in the crimes he had committed when he was 9
remember …
larceny?malicious destruction of property?, assault and illegal entry?murder?
Nathaniel abraham hadn’t killed anyone,in the 8 years since the trial
so,on the 18th of january,2007 after spending nearly a decade in juvenile detention, nate was free…released into society
he was a free man
i wish this was the end of the story and i wish i could vrap it up here with some disney- esque happily -ever -after.
but unfortunately , there were more issues ahead for nate
for the first 18 months of his new – found freedom, nothing remotely criminal or remarkable happened to nate
unfortunately in may of 2008
nate was arrested again in pontiac with 254 ecstasy pills in a liquor bottle.
he was sentenced to four to 20 years in prison ,but eventaully got paroled in june 2017
did the rehabilitation fail
or was this just another misstep that nate would learn from?
well , consider this….after he was discharged from parole in july of 2o18 on the 6th of august of that same year ,nate got into more trouble with the police, after he exposed himself infront of a 46 -year old neighbor,who had declined his offer to cut her lawn.
two days after that incident he struck deputies who tried to take him into custody for skipping a court appeance,he was charged wuth resisting and obstructing police
a felony punishable by ut to four years in prison
had the system faled nate or was this his own doing?
or better still … undoing ?
in 2019, nate,who was now 33 was handed a 6 to 40 years prison sentence for selling drugs to an undercover police officer in farmington hills.
before the sentece , he pleaded guilty and shown remorse for his actions, this was probably the reason why the judge had been extremely lenient when sentencing him.
because under normal circumstances he would have had to face another life sentence ,because of his frequent problems with the law
Nate wasn’t alone in court on the day of his sentencing, his mother , siblings and every relative that had been by his side since the start of his troubling journey with the law almost 20 years before ,was present
and when the cameras turned to his mother …when the questions about the support she had forher son came up …
Gloria abraham was unwavering , nothing had changed on her end
” i believe in my son ” she said ” and of course,society doesn’t know his life he will do ok, he’ a strong young man”
Nate remains in prison