Deadly hit-and-run in New Mexico brings juvenile justice challenges into
focus
[March 24, 2025]
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Behind the wheel of the stolen car was a
12-year-old boy. In the front passenger seat was a boy who just days
earlier had marked his 11th birthday. He was waving a handgun as a
15-year-old boy in the backseat recorded video of what police described
as a deliberate hit-and-run.
A voice believed to be the 15-year-old’s says, “Just bump him, brah.”
The driver asks, “Like bump him?” The rear passenger responds, “Yeah,
just bump him. Go like … 15 … 20.”
The car smashed into a bicyclist on his way to work. The windshield
shattered and the car sped away in the predawn hours that May morning.
Months passed with no arrests. Then in February a video of the deadly
crash surfaced on social media. Remarkably it led police back to an
11-year-old who last June was arrested and placed in custody for a
series of break-ins and burglaries in northeast Albuquerque. Police also
accused the boy of shooting and wounding another teen, which prompted an
investigation that turned up firearms and a bullet-proof vest that had
been stolen from a police vehicle.
But the allegations of running down and killing a person were on another
level, one seldom dealt with in New Mexico's juvenile justice system.
The 11-year-old and the other boys in the car, now ages 13 and 16, were
arrested last week in connection with the death of Scott Dwight
Habermehl, a father of two and a successful engineer.
Prosecutors said Friday that all three boys will face the same charges:
counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the
scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful
possession of a handgun by a person under 19. Prosecutors are seeking to
have the oldest boy charged as an adult.
The spike in juvenile violence — particularly this latest case — has
shaken the community, further frustrated law enforcement and added to
the pressure on policymakers to reconsider the limitations of a juvenile
justice system that wasn't designed to deal with children as young as
11.
Authorities have suggested there is a perception among juveniles that
they won't face consequences for violent crimes.
How are young defendants handled?
Albuquerque police have arrested numerous teens, most being 15 or older,
in homicide cases over the last year. Legal experts and authorities
can't recall a case in which someone as young as 11 has faced a murder
charge.
Under state law, the 11-year-old cannot be held in a juvenile detention
center but will remain in the custody of the state child welfare agency.
The other two boys were ordered to remain in a juvenile detention center
as their cases proceed, with children's court judges finding they were a
danger to themselves and the community.
Santa Fe-based attorney John Day said New Mexico’s juvenile justice
system was meant to intervene and get help for children so they wouldn't
commit crimes as adults. It was designed with the assumption that kids
this young weren't competent to engage in this kind of violent behavior,
he said.
“Obviously when you have 11-year-olds who are being accused of
participating in running over bicyclists and brandishing guns, that’s
something that when they were drafting these laws was really not taken
into consideration because it was a different time. It was a different
era,” Day said.
There is a minimum age for prosecuting juveniles in 26 states, with
statutes spelling out various exceptions, according to the National
Juvenile Justice Network. But New Mexico is among the many states
without a minimum age and state law allows for teenagers as young as 14
in some instances to be tried in adult court only for first-degree
murder.
Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman says the children's code
is antiquated, but efforts have failed to get the Democratic-controlled
Legislature to expand the types of violent crimes juveniles could be
charged in as adults.
“The single most effective step to reduce violent crime in our community
is modernizing our juvenile justice system with meaningful consequences
alongside behavioral health support,” Bregman said recently.
Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Saturday reiterated her
disappointment that lawmakers failed to pass legislation to address
juvenile justice and what she described as a crime crisis. She also
pointed to a deadly shooting at a park in Las Cruces on Friday night,
saying lawmakers should expect to be called back for a special session.
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This March 20, 2025 photo shows a memorial ghost bike near the spot
where Scott Dwight Habermehl was struck and fatally injured in May
2024 while biking to work at Sandia National Laboratories in
Albuquerque, N.M. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
How has juvenile justice changed in the US?
Before the creation of juvenile courts more than a century ago,
children who were older than 7 were processed and incarcerated under
common law just as adults would be. Younger children were considered
incapable of possessing criminal intent.
Along with that history, the U.S. Justice Department's Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention notes on its website
that the juvenile court system also was established to provide
positive social development for children who lack support at home.
It's not clear what home life was like for the 11-year-old accused
in the New Mexico case. The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families
Department has declined to comment. The Albuquerque school district
confirmed he was not enrolled in school.
Juvenile justice advocates say cases in which young children are
accused of murder are rare but not unheard of. In 2008, Arizona
prosecutors handled the case of an 8-year-old boy who shot and
killed his father and his father's friend. He pleaded guilty to
negligent homicide in the death of the friend. Prosecutors dropped
the charge for killing his father, saying it was best for the boy
not to have to acknowledge killing his father.
Some advocates have pushed for setting the minimum age for
prosecution at least 14, citing research suggesting children who
enter the juvenile justice system earlier in their lives have more
adverse outcomes than older teens.
Regardless of the timing, children in the system are likely to be
exposed to harsh conditions and face disruptions to their education
and family relationships.
“That type of harm caused at such a young age has a serious impact
on the rest of their life,” said Riya Saha Shah, the CEO of the
Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
Can children comprehend the consequences?
Before knowing the hit-and-run in New Mexico was deliberate,
authorities had warned in a criminal complaint naming the
11-year-old in other crimes that the pattern of misconduct was
escalating in violence. The document went on to suggest the boy was
a danger to himself and the public.
Cases like this beg questions about how children end up in
situations like this and what systems failed them along the way,
said Amy Borror, a senior youth policy strategist with The Gault
Center, a Washington, D.C.-based youth rights advocacy group.
Another consideration, she said, is that adolescents' brains are
wired differently. Borror pointed specifically to the part of the
brain that controls reasoning, rational thought and the ability to
comprehend the effects of actions.
“That’s why kids and teenagers act exactly like kids and teenagers
act,” she said, referring to risk-seeking behavior that intensifies
while in groups.
The difficulty comes with figuring out how to hold someone
accountable when they don't have the same level of rational decision
making that adults do, said Joshua Kastenberg, a former lawyer and
judge in the U.S. Air Force who now teaches at the University of New
Mexico Law School.
“Kids in the criminal justice system are one of the more difficult
questions in the law,” Kastenberg said. “Unlike adults, where you
can simply say, ‘Well, this person intentionally ran down a cyclist
in their car, they’re a danger to society.’ Whether they have anger
management problems or they hate cyclists or whatever, they
completely disregarded the right of another human being to simply
live. ... But when you’re talking about kids, none of that sinks
in.”
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