Competency questioned for 11-year-old murder suspect

Posted at: 11/18/2009 12:21 PM | Updated at: 11/19/2009 7:53 AM
By: Kayla Anderson, Eyewitness News 4, and Kurt Christopher, KOB.com

 The case against an 11-year-old boy charged with murdering his father in Valencia County hit a snag Wednesday afternoon.

The boy is charged with shooting and killing his father, 42-year-old Bryon Hilburn, with a rifle back in August.  Following the shooting, the boy called police and waited for officers outside his father’s Belen home.

Court documents show that the boy was mad at his father at the time because he felt his father had punished him too harshly.

District Attorney Lemuel Martinez’s office filed a petition earlier this month charging the boy, who was 10-years-old at the time of the shooting, with first degree murder.

KOB Eyewitness News 4 is not reporting the boy’s name due to his age.

At the arraignment Wednesday afternoon, the boy’s attorney, Jeff Buckles, entered a “not guilty” plea and also entered a claim of incompetence – citing the boy’s immaturity and what the lawyer called symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).  That claim essentially put the case on hold until the state can complete a competency hearing for the boy.

The boy was not in the courtroom Wednesday, but even if he had been there, his attorney Mr. Buckles says he would not have allowed him to speak.

"I think any of your viewers who have a ten or 11-year-old child, and were asked, ‘Could your child really participate meaningfully in the decisions about strategy and tactics,’ would say you gotta be kidding me,” said Buckles.

The boy is currently under state supervision and living with his mother in Rio Rancho because he is too young for juvenile jail.  Buckles says the boy is seeing two psychologists a week and receives weekly home visits from the Children Youth and Families Department.

Print Story