Atty: Drop Mass. Teen's Murder Charge

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A lawyer for a teenager accused of stabbing a classmate to death in a high school bathroom asked a judge to throw out the murder charge Thursday, arguing prosecutors improperly told the grand jury that it should not consider the student's mental disabilities.

John Odgren, who has a form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome, was indicted by a grand jury on a first-degree murder charge in the January 2007 stabbing at Lincoln-Sudbury High School.

His lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro, said he believed the grand jury might have indicted Odgren on a lesser charge _ either second-degree murder or manslaughter _ if it had been given more information about Asperger's Syndrome and its potential impact on Odgren's ability to plan a murder.

Under state law, one definition of first-degree murder includes deliberate premeditation, or planning, while second-degree murder and manslaughter lack premeditation.

"Aspects of Asperger's Syndrome interfere with executive function _ the ability to plan, the ability to premeditate," Shapiro said.

Odgren, then 16, is accused of pouncing on 15-year-old James Alenson in a boys' bathroom, stabbing him five times with an 11-inch knife and slashing his throat. Prosecutors said Odgren had never met Alenson before the attack and picked him at random.

The killing stunned the residents of Sudbury, an affluent suburb about 17 miles west of Boston.

Shapiro said that Assistant District Attorney Daniel Bennett presented evidence of Odgren's mental health diagnoses to the grand jury, but in response to questions from jurors told them they should not consider Odgren's past diagnoses or his status as a special needs student when deciding what charges, if any, Odgren should face.

Bennett said he told the grand jury not to consider Odgren's disabilities or his past episodes of violence in an effort to be fair to the 17-year-old.

"We presented the evidence to the grand jury in an effort to protect the defendant from unfair prejudice," Bennett said.

Judge Isaac Borenstein did not immediately issue a ruling. Odgren's trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 15.