By Scott North
Herald Writer
A group of teens allegedly involved in the brutal killing of an Everett man are either "monsters" who belong behind bars for decades or troubled children society can’t afford to simply throw away.
A Snohomish County judge on Thursday spent the entire day listening to lawyers argue about how the legal system should best deal with four teens charged with the April killing of Jerry Heimann, 64.
Superior Court Judge Charles French must decide whether the two boys and two girls — ages 13 and 14 — should have their cases moved out of juvenile court and into the adult system. French has been taking testimony on the case since late September, and expects to announce a decision in early November.
If the teens are convicted as juveniles, they face a maximum punishment of detention and treatment in a juvenile prison until they reach 21. If convicted in adult court, they face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years behind bars.
Deputy prosecutor George Appel said the defendants belong in adult court because lengthy sentences are the best protection from "monsters" who have shown a "peculiar, cold indifference" to human life.
But Mickey Krom, an attorney representing a 14-year-old Everett girl, said that providing long-term treatment for young people in a juvenile detention center is the best option.
"Are we really protecting the public when we throw kids to the wolves" and put them into prisons with hardened convicts? Krom asked at one point.
Prosecutors allege that all of the teens agreed to kill Heimann as part of a plan to pilfer his bank accounts.
The plot allegedly was hatched by Barbara Opel, 38, who had worked as a live-in caregiver for Heimann’s ailing 89-year-old mother. She purportedly enlisted her then 13-year-old daughter and some of the girl’s friends and acquaintances to carry out the killing.
Opel is charged with aggravated first-degree murder, and prosecutors are considering asking the death penalty. Another defendant, Jeff Grote, 17, has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and under a plea agreement likely will be sentenced to 50 years in prison.
The other youths are all charged with first-degree murder.
Appel spent part of Thursday recounting how Heimann died, bleeding to death from repeated stab wounds and with his skull broken open from blows from an aluminum baseball bat.
The killing was a "clumsily produced hit operation," and evidence suggests that none of the young people involved seemed terribly troubled by the act, he argued.
But all of the defendants involved have had tumultuous upbringings involving varying degrees of abuse and neglect, defense attorneys countered. They pointed to testimony from mental health experts that each stands a good chance of becoming a productive citizen if given years of therapy in the juvenile justice system.
Stephen Garvey, an Everett defense attorney who represents a 13-year-old Marysville boy, said prosecutors are taking the "rigid and puritanical" view that the young people involved were miniature adults instead of children easily led by Opel.
"They don’t act like adults. They did not commit an adult crime," Garvey said.
Seattle attorney Michele Shaw, who represents Opel’s now-14-year-old daughter, reminded French that a psychologist said the girl participated in the crime because she was abused and had learned over the years not to question her mother’s orders.
The girl deserves a chance, Shaw argued.
"She’s never, ever going to be subjected to her mother’s authority again," she said.
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
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