Nehemiah Griego to be sentenced as an adult
At age 15, he killed five of his family members
After a lengthy court battle and numerous twists and turns, a judge determined on Friday that Nehemiah Griego, who killed his parents and three younger siblings in 2013, will be sentenced as an adult.
On Friday, Judge Alisa Hart filed a 75-page order in 2nd Judicial District Court stating she reviewed transcripts, recordings and exhibits from a December amenability hearing and considered relevant case law and arguments from the attorneys, and found the now 22-year-old is not amenable to treatment or rehabilitation in available facilities and, therefore, should not be sentenced as a child.
The determination reverses a 2016 ruling by Children’s Court Judge John Romero who found prosecutors hadn’t proved Griego wasn’t amenable to treatment. Griego had pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of intentional child abuse resulting in death.
At that time, Romero sentenced Griego to the custody of New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department until his 21st birthday. However, the state Attorney General’s Office appealed the sentence and 11 days before he was supposed to be released the Court of Appeals ruled the case should be sent back to a judge for another amenability hearing.
Romero recused himself half-way through that second amenability
hearing and the case was transferred to Hart’s courtroom.
Griego’s sentencing date hasn’t been scheduled, but he now faces up to 120 years in prison.
However he could also receive far less prison time and receive probation and treatment instead, according to Stephen Taylor, his public defender. Taylor said he visited his client in the Metropolitan Detention Center Friday afternoon and is looking forward to the sentencing hearing.
“We are hopeful that the court would still be looking at allowing him to continue his treatment and not send him to prison which would interfere and maybe even truncate the treatment that he has received over the last six years,” Taylor told the Journal.
In January 2013, Griego — then 15 — shot and killed his mother and three younger siblings, ages 9, 5 and 2, in the family’s South Valley home. Then, he armed himself with an AR-15 and waited for his father to return home from his shift at a Rescue Mission. He shot his father four or five times, killing him.
These chilling details factored into Hart’s determination about Griego’s amenability to treatment as a child.
“When asked why he killed his family, child stated that he ‘can’t answer why,’ ” she wrote. “The killings of child’s family members were not committed in self-defense or defense of another. The killings of child’s family members were calculated and willful.”
The other factors Hart considered include: The seriousness of the offense; whether a firearm was used to commit the offense; whether the offense was against people; the maturity of the child; the record and previous history of the child; and the prospects for adequate protection of the public and the likelihood of reasonable rehabilitation.
Much of the specifics throughout the order are redacted, however the only factor that was weighted favorably toward Griego’s rehabilitation was his record and history since he “had little opportunity to interact with anyone outside of his family’s home and church.”
Hart determined the other six factors showed he is not amenable to treatment and rehabilitation as a child.
She also stated that she could not be satisfied that his release to an “unlocked treatment setting” would adequately protect the public.
“A locked treatment facility that offers services such as those offered by (redacted) may be the most beneficial option for both child and the public at this stage of child’s rehabilitation,” Hart wrote.