The Court recognizes the failings created by the sentencing option of incarceration and would much prefer a different alternative that would allow for continued treatment in a locked setting, if one existed.” A sentence that addresses punishment and provides for the immediate protection of society, based on defendant’s current level of rehabilitation, will likely undo the work accomplished through the juvenile system and place the public at greater risk in the future. Therefore, she wrote, “the court essentially has no choice but to protect society at the expense of defendant’s continued trauma-informed treatment since such a targeted, sophisticated treatment is not available in the Department of Corrections.
However, Hart ultimately decided that option would “put society at too great a risk” since he would not be under lock and key. Furthermore pretty much everyone agrees that Griego has been committed to treatment while in juvenile detention and “was open to changing his ideas and behavior,” according to the sentencing memorandum.Īt last month’s sentencing hearing, Taylor highlighted the lack of services and mental health treatment in the prison system and instead urged Hart to sentence Griego to probation and send him to an out-of-state program that would continue his treatment.
Throughout the many hearings held in this case, Taylor, Griego’s attorney, has argued his client was subjected to “significant abuse, isolation and the glorification of violence” as a child. It was reassigned to Judge Hart and in August she determined Griego should be sentenced as an adult. However the Attorney General’s Office appealed that decision, and 11 days before Griego was set to be released from state custody the New Mexico Court of Appeals ordered the judge to hold another hearing and take into account the violent and grisly nature of his crimes.įive days into that hearing, the Children’s Court judge recused himself from the case after having a conversation with a defense expert witness. And you’ll notice she called the choice to send him to prison ‘distressing.'” “That forced her to place Nehemiah ‘with the most serious violent offenders’ in a prison system where he won’t receive the trauma-informed treatment that has proven to work for young offenders. “The judge here is saying that she would have been willing to give Nehemiah probation in a locked treatment facility, but that treatment doesn’t exist in New Mexico,” he wrote.
In an emailed statement, Griego’s public defender, Stephen Taylor, referenced these statements. In her ruling, Hart laments that a facility does not exist in the state that would provide treatment for Griego while at the same time ensuring he could not escape and commit future acts of violence. Griego also addressed the court and apologized to his three older sisters and thanked his aunts and uncles for standing by him. Judge Hart’s decision comes a little more than two weeks after an all-day hearing in which Griego’s remaining family members and parents’ friends, law enforcement, defense attorneys and prosecutors argued over how much, if any, prison time he should serve. In all, he will serve 30 years, before he could be released on parole. Griego will get credit for the 2,476 days – six years and 285 days – he’s already spent behind bars. The state had requested the maximum penalty of 120 years.
Nehemiah Griego, far left, with his family, including his parents and three younger siblings who he later killed. Those sentences will run concurrent to one another but consecutive to the life sentences. She also sentenced him to seven years for killing each of his parents. In a 16-page sentencing memorandum and decision filed in 2nd Judicial District Court on Friday, Judge Alisa Hart ruled that Griego, now 22, should serve three concurrent life sentences for child abuse resulting in the death of his three siblings, ages 2 to 9. Nearly seven years after he killed his parents and three young siblings – shooting his mother while she slept, then turning the rifle on his brother and two sisters before lying in wait for hours to ambush his father after he returned from work – Nehemiah Griego was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Nehemiah Griego turns towards his sisters to apologize for killing five members of their family during a sentencing hearing last month.
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