In 1999, Nathaniel Abraham, one of the youngest murder defendants in U.S. history, stood trial for the shooting death of Ronnie Greene, Jr., in Pontiac, Michigan. The events giving rise to Abraham's murder trial took place on October 27, 1997. On that day, eleven-year-old Abraham, whose defense attorney would later argue to have the mental capacity of a six-year-old, shot and killed Greene with a .22 caliber rifle. Under five feet tall and just sixty-five pounds at the time he shot eighteen-year-old Greene, Abraham was charged under a controversial Michigan law that allowed juveniles accused of violent crimes to be tried and sentenced as adults.

In 1997, the Michigan legislature adopted the controversial law used in the Abraham case known as the Juvenile Waiver Law. The law lowered the age at which juveniles could be automatically tried as adults and created a new process in which juveniles of any age could be...