Nathaniel was taken from his class at Lincoln Junior High School two days after the shooting and told by police that they wanted to question him about a gun. Before the interrogation, Pontiac Police Detective Brian York convinced Nathaniel, who was eleven at the time, to sign a police form waiving his constitutional rights to an attorney and to remain silent. Although Nathaniel's mother was present, she was never told that her son was being questioned in connection with a homicide investigation. At the May 6 hearing on the admissibility of the confession, Nathaniel's lawyers, Daniel Bagdade and William Lansat, argued that the youth could not possibly understand what he was signing, nor the fact that any statements he made could be used against him in court. The mother said up front that if she had known he was a suspect in a murder case, she would never have signed the Miranda form.
New laws criminalize children Michigan now has the harshest laws against children in the nation.
The Juvenile Justice Reform Act, sponsored by Governor John Engler, allows judges to try children as adults. The new law sets no minimum age for prosecution as an adult. Throughout the United States, the number of youths tried and sentenced as adults has increased by 70 percent in the last five years, according to the National Center for Juvenile Justice. Nathaniel has had a troubled life, growing up without a father in one of the most impoverished areas of Pontiac, a city ravaged by the shutdown of auto plants and mass layoffs. His mother, Gloria Abraham, works long hours at night in a lab.