Juvenile cases raise competency concerns

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, March 12, 2003 | 11:08 a.m.

Monique Maestas. Mark Ford. Justin Porter.

They all face murder charges in separate brutal slayings in Clark County.

All three have trials pending in the same justice system that tries other alleged perpetrators of violent crimes. All three are being held in the Clark County Detention Center, where many of the city's murderers, rapists and child molesters are housed.

Maestas, Ford and Porter were also under 18 when their crimes were allegedly committed.

A study released last week claims the ages alone of the three defendants could render them incompetent to stand trial, despite the seriousness of their alleged crimes.

The MacArthur Foundation Research Network's study "Juvenile Competence to Stand Trial" claims most children under 16 are unable to understand court proceedings and lack the ability to make basic decisions concerning their trial.

The study has sparked a national debate over trying child defendants as adults, and the debate is being mirrored in Nevada, where children 8 and older charged with murder, attempted murder and some sexual assaults are automatically tried in the adult system and teens 16 and older are eligible for the death penalty.

The study tested 1,400 people between the ages of 11 to 24 on psychological skills that measure understanding and reasoning.

About 30 percent of 11- to 13-year-olds and about 20 percent of 14- and 15-year-olds were at levels similar to adults who had been declared incompetent to stand trial.

Only 11 percent of adults 18 and older had similar results.

Deputy Special Public Defenders Phil Kohn and Daren Richards, Maestas' attorneys, plan to use the study in their fight to get their client's case sent back to Juvenile Court, where they say it belongs.

Monique Maestas, 16, and her 19-year-old brother, Beau, face the death penalty in a stabbing attack that left 3-year-old Kristyanna Cowan dead and her sister, Brittney Bergeron, 10, paralyzed.

Richards said children don't have the capacity to make key decisions regarding their trial, such as whether to testify or take a plea deal.

"If an adult who has the mental capacity of a 14- or 15-year-old can't make those decisions, why take a 14- or 15-year-old and say they can?" he asked.

But District Attorney David Roger, who called the findings "nonsense," said he would fight the effort.

"If they're competent enough to go out and commit these violent crimes, they're competent enough to stand trial," he said.

Crimes being committed by some juvenile offenders are brutal and can't go unpunished, he said.

Ford, 15, for instance, is charged with murder in a deadly stabbing attack in a northwest gated community that left Vincent Gomes dead.

Porter faces a litany of charges, including murder, sexual assault and robbery, in an alleged 2000 crime spree. He was 17 at the time.

Chief Deputy Public Defender Curtis Brown, who represents both Ford and Porter, declined to discuss what role, if any, the study's results will play in the individual cases, but said he agreed with most of the study's findings.

"Often, at-risk children are even less mature than other children their age," he said. "You have to look at each case on an individual basis."

While Kohn declined to comment on the mental state of Monique Maestas, he said most teen clients don't understand the significance of the charges they face.

"Children aren't capable of looking at problems from all angles," he said. "That's why we don't let them drink, smoke or enter into contracts."

Juvenile Court officials have also been busy charging children with lesser crimes. In 2002 alone Clark County's Juvenile Court filed 8,184 petitions charging minors with delinquent acts, officials said.

"The more heinous crimes are being committed by younger and younger people," said Chief Deputy District Attorney David Schwartz, who is prosecuting the Maestas siblings. "Society has to be protected from dangerous offenders. Unfortunately some of them are children."

Schwartz said teen competency should be addressed the same way it is with adults only when defense attorneys request an evaluation.

He added that most child offenders, like adult offenders, have had previous run-ins with the law.

"Most of these kids have been in the system before," he said. "They need to know that if they get caught, they're going to pay the price."

The directors of the study say they hope the results will encourage defense attorneys to ask more questions about the competency of teen defendants.

Thomas Grisso of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, who directed the study, said children under 16 should automatically be evaluated for competency.

"As the stakes get higher, so does the importance of identifying kids as competent," he said. "These kids are making enormous decisions that will influence the rest of their lives."

Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist who directs the foundation that conducted the study, said he hopes the results will encourage states such as Nevada to reconsider the age in which children are tried as adults.

"It doesn't make sense to transfer large amounts of individuals into the adult system if they're going to be found incompetent," he said. "It's a waste of time."

While teens can be taught about how the criminal justice system works, emotional maturity can't be addressed so quickly, Steinberg said.

Because the brain doesn't fully develop until the end of adolescence, expecting a 15-year-old to possess adult reasoning skills is "like trying to teach a 3-year-old calculus," he said.

Deputy Special Public Defender Kristina Wildeveld agreed.

Wildeveld defended Conan Pope, who was 15 when he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the 2000 shooting of his father, Frank Pope, and Marcus Dixon, who was 14 when a jury sentenced him to 40 years in prison for murder.

Dixon now regrets not taking a plea deal, which would have guaranteed him a 10- to 25-year sentence, Wildeveld said. The attorney strongly recommended he accept a deal, but he refused and, as the client, Dixon had the final say, she said.

Guardians should be appointed to teens such as Dixon to help them make decisions about their case, Wildeveld said.

"You tell a 15-year-old he's facing 40 years and that means nothing to him," she said.

But Roger said the study underestimates the intelligence of most violent offenders, regardless of age.

The standard for determining competency depends on a defendant's ability to understand the charges he faces and assist his attorney at trial, Roger said.

Those declared incompetent through psychological testing are sent to Lakes Crossing, a state mental health facility in Sparks, for further evaluation.

"I would venture to guess that most teenage offenders of violent crimes are more savvy about the criminal justice system than most adults," Roger said.

"Prove it," Kohn responded. "If they're not that savvy, then we've got to treat them differently. But we've got to ask the question."

A judge should look at each case and determine if a child defendant is competent enough to stand trial, he said.

Kohn said some of his young clients who have been housed in the Clark County Detention Center have been sexually molested in the jail.

"No matter what they did, they're kids," he said. "I want someone to review the crime and their ability to understand before they're thrown to the wolves of the criminal justice system."

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