By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 30, 2006; C01

Like her neighbors, Sandy Willis was troubled when she heard about the 12-year-old boy who allegedly killed his mother and younger brother. "Where does it end?" she asked herself. Then she learned that he was being charged as a juvenile.

Now she's outside her apartment, in the complex where the homicides took place, calling for tougher justice.

"If you are 12 and you kill a man, then you have to do a man's time," she says, shaking her head. Moments later, neighbor Wayne Davis walks up and overhears her. And he, too, shakes his head, but for a different reason.

"He's just a baby," he blurts out. "He has a chance to change."

Last weekend's double homicide in Prince George's County has ignited strong opinions across the region over whether very young children accused of violent crimes should be punished as adults, even as such crimes have become more rare.

The number of killings committed by juveniles has been declining nationally since 1994, and arrest rates for juvenile violent crimes are at their lowest in a generation, according to a Department of Justice study this year.

The boy, who is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, would face a life sentence in prison if he were tried as an adult. But as in many other states, including Virginia, a Maryland resident younger than 14 cannot be charged as an adult with murder and transferred to an adult criminal court. In the District, the threshold is 15 years old.

Cases of such children are typically handled in the juvenile system. In Maryland, prosecutors can petition a juvenile-court judge to allow the case to move into adult court, but that is rarely used for a young child.

If the 12-year-old boy is found guilty, he could be remanded to a program for troubled youths and be released when he turns 21 -- or even earlier.

"In Maryland, the problem we face is: What do you do with a 12- or 13-year-old who commits multiple murders in our system of justice?" said James Backstrom, co-chairman of the National District Attorneys Association's Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. "There need to be something more than juvenile court prosecution."

Child advocates say that the juvenile system can adequately address violent crimes and that young offenders can be rehabilitated with proper treatment and attention.

"Hold him accountable, impose sanctions and some degree of retribution, but in a way that is appropriate for his age," said Marsha Levick, legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a national children's rights group based in Philadelphia.

"The act is just as bad as if it was committed by someone who is 17 or 21," said Robert F. Horan Jr., Fairfax County commonwealth's attorney. "What standards do you apply to him? It's a tough question, and I'm not sure anyone has a good answer."

The boy is accused of bludgeoning and stabbing his mother, Katrina Denise Powe, 31, and brother, Mystery Toma Hillian, 9, in their Forestville apartment. He is not being named by The Washington Post because he is a juvenile.

FBI statistics point to 5,233 children age 14 and younger who committed homicides across the nation between 1976 and 2002, accounting for 0.9 percent of all killers, according to an analysis by Brian Wiersema, a researcher with the Violence Research Group at the University of Maryland.

There were 64 children who committed murder in the D.C. metropolitan region during that time. The study did not examine what happened to the youths after the killings.

It is even more infrequent for children 12 and younger to commit murder. Over the studied period, that group consisted of 990 children, or 0.2 percent of all murderers. Fifteen were in the D.C. region.

The last known case in the region occurred in 2003, when a 12-year-old Rockville girl fatally stabbed her 15-year-old brother after they fought over whose turn it was to use the telephone. A judge ordered her held in a juvenile facility for treatment after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter. For the same crime, an adult would face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Even as juvenile crime has fallen, most states have continued to crack down on child offenders, enacting strict legislation and zero-tolerance policies. From 1992 through 1997, 44 states and the District passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults.

Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey argues that Maryland needs to get tougher. In an interview last week, he proposed creating a hybrid system that would have a blend of juvenile and adult criminal sanctions for the most egregious offenders.

So far, 15 states have such systems. Like Maryland, neither Virginia nor the District has one.

"We really do need to get a handle on the big picture, on the direction of where we are going to go with violent juvenile offenders," Ivey said.

But many child advocates say that the falling number of murders by children is a key reason why violent juveniles should not be punished as adults. And they question whether very young offenders are mature enough to know that they are doing something wrong.

"The likelihood that this child is as blameworthy or as culpable as an 18- , 20- , or 30-year-old is silly," Levick said.

Prosecutors argue that numbers alone don't paint an accurate portrait.

"Violent juvenile crime has been dropping, but unfortunately we're still seeing isolated acts of extreme violence involving juvenile offenders," Backstrom said.

The 12-year-old boy did not have an arrest record or a documented pattern of abuse, police sources said. He is undergoing psychological evaluation. Ivey said he needs to further investigate the case before considering a petition to transfer him to an adult criminal court.

At the Penn Mar apartment complex, the site of the slayings, residents are having mixed feelings about treating the 12-year-old as a juvenile.

A woman walking to her car mutters: "Sure, he's a kid, but he did kill two people."

A few yards from her, Antonieno Kerns, 25, says: "If you treat him as an adult, he's going to get even more worse than he is now. He's going to go where older people who absolutely don't care are. And they can make him don't care even more."

Nearby, Willis, 35, and Davis, 52, who are friends, launch into a vigorous debate.

Willis: "What happens when he's 18 or 21 and he's released into society?"

Davis: "At age 18, it's still six years. At his age, he can be rehabilitated."

Willis: "If you owned a business, would you hire him?"

Davis: "Depends on what kind of business. I wouldn't allow him to hang around no children anymore. Anyway, I don't think he's going to get out no time soon. He should be there until he's 35."

Willis: "The only way that's going to happen is if he's tried as an adult."

Davis: "If that's the case then, yeah, I agree. I don't want him to get out early. Then, I think he should be tried as an adult."

He pauses, thinking, and shakes his head again.

"He still needs help," he adds. "I don't think he realized what he did. He's got to have some kind of heart in him."

Willis shakes her head again.

Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.