Appeal to decide if suspect, then 11, was ‘adult’
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Superior Court panel in Pittsburgh must decide whether a boy who was 11 at the time should be tried as an adult in the slaying of his father’s pregnant fiancee.
A Lawrence County judge in March refused to move Jordan Brown’s case to juvenile court. Now 13, Brown is charged with shotgunning 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, also killing her unborn son, in their New Galilee farmhouse in February 2009.
The judge ruled Brown wasn’t likely to be rehabilitated in juvenile court because he won’t acknowledge the crime. But Brown’s attorneys were expected to argue today that asking the boy to do so violates his right against self-incrimination.
The court panel is expected to take weeks or months to rule.
Brown faces life in prison if convicted as an adult, but woud be free by age 21 if he’s tried in juvenile court.