18 year old John David LaDue, the teenager from Waseca, Minnesota, who told investigators that he was planning to kill his family and plant a bomb at his school will be tried as an adult. He will have to endure up to fives years in county jail.
Upon his arrest, in April 2014, LaDue was 17 years old, when he was found with explosive materials in a depository building. Robert Birnbaum, the Waseca Country Judge in charge with the trial proposed that, according to public safety factors, the young criminal should be relocated from the juvenile detention center to a high-security prison before appearing in court as an adult.
If LaDue was to stay in a juvenile detention center, as his attorneys insisted in late June, the 18 year old would have had remained under jurisdiction until his 21st birthday. The defense said that the psychologists of the juvenile court could properly treat LaDue, who was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. They also asked for the charges for LaDue’s planned killing spree to be dismissed because of his mental condition.
The prosecutors however insist that regardless of LaDue’s disorders, he still represents a great public safety risk and that the time he would serve in the juvenile system will not prove to be enough, accentuating that the young convict will turn 21 in 2017.
But prosecutors say La Due is a public safety risk and that there isn’t enough time for him to receive treatment in the juvenile system, noting that he’ll turn 21 in late 2017. Birnbaum ruled that LaDue should be transferred soon forward to a county jail in Waseca.
The young man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder and six counts of bomb possession. By the account of prosecutors, if convicted on all counts he will face up to 58 months in jail. LaDue is expected in court this Monday morning.
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