KEY POINTS:
A Hawaii state judge waived Family Court jurisdiction today over a New Zealand teenager accused of strangling his neighbour last year, leaving the youth liable to jail for life without parole if convicted.
The judge's decision allowed Honolulu police and prosecutors to charge Vernon Bartley, 16, as an adult, and homicide detectives immediately arrested Bartley and took him to a Honolulu Police Department cellblock, the Honolulu Star Bulletin reported.
Prosecutors want to charge the boy with murder, robbery, burglary, auto theft and other offences.
Bartley's lawyer Jeffrey Hawk said he expected the prosecutor's office would charge the teenager with first-degree murder and other crimes in connection with the May 25, 2007 slaying of 51-year-old Karen Ertelll and burglary of home.
Bartley, who moved to Hawaii from New Zealand in 2005, was 15 when Ms Ertell's body was found.
Mr Hawk said he expected prosecutors to claim that Bartley killed Ms Ertell because she was scheduled to testify against him in another criminal prosecution.
The punishment for first-degree murder in Hawaii is a mandatory life prison term without the possibility for parole.
The teenager has been arrested more than 10 times since moving to Hawaii, for offences such as burglary, trespassing, and theft.
The boy's father, named only as Petelo, told the Star-Bulletin he had long worried about his son's petty crimes and that the tragedy could have been averted if he had been locked up earlier.
The father turned his son in to police.
A pathologist has said Ms Ertell died of "asphyxia due to manual strangulation".
According to prosecutor Douglas Chin, if the boy had been tried as a minor in the Family Court, a judge could have considered issues such as the seriousness of the alleged offence, whether an offence was committed in an aggressive, violent, premeditated or wilful manner, and the sophistication and maturity of the minor.
Family Court in Hawaii also weighs the safety of the public and the likelihood that the minor can be rehabilitated in deciding whether he will face trial as an adult.
- NZPA
