Tri-Cities judge rules in case of 16-year-old gang member facing adult murder charges

A now 16-year-old murder suspect will be tried as an adult for his part in a robbery-turned murder.

Superior Court Judge Diana Ruff ruled that it would be in the best interest of the public to try Jacquez Young in adult court in a written decision that came after a recent hearing.

Prosecutors have not officially charged Young in adult court yet. He has been facing one court of first-degree murder in Benton-Franklin Juvenile Court for the April death of 17-year-old Ricardo Rivera.

Since Jacquez Young was 15 at the time he was charged, a judge needed to decide whether the case should be handled in adult court.

Ruff looked at a series of eight factors and found, in most of the cases, they required treating him as an adult.

She found the protection of the community, the evidence and the crime warranted the change.

She ruled Young lacked the maturity needed to require moving him, and that he hadn’t exhausted the rehabilitative resources of the juvenile system.

However, overall, she sided with advancing the teen to adult court. He is expected back in court on Dec. 21.

Deputy prosecutors and Young’s defense attorneys presented different images of the teen during a hearing earlier this week.

Police officials testified that Young was a gang affiliate who was missing school and an active part of the robbery plot that ended with a shooting.

Young’s defense attorney argued his client merely was pulled along by his brother and friends and would be better served in juvenile detention.

April shooting

Jacquez Young is accused of joining his half-brother Jacob Young, 18, and two fellow teens in what police believe was a plot to rob Rivera in a west Kennewick neighborhood on April 28.

Jacob Young allegedly used the name “Dontae100” on the SnapChat messenger to set up a meeting on Arrowhead Avenue. According to court documents, Rivera was dropping off a gram of marijuana oil.

A witness saw the four teens pull Rivera out of the Nissan he was driving, Kennewick Detective Kirk Nebeker testified.

It’s still unclear which teen shot him.

Along with the drugs, they allegedly grabbed $1,900 in cash from a black leather bank envelop in the car. It’s also not clear if the teens knew about the large amount of cash ahead of time.

The four were caught on camera running from the scene.

Jacquez Young was affiliated with the Gangster Disciples and part of a group of gang members who called themselves the “Blitz Crew.”

While not an official gang, the group had drawn members from the Gangster Disciples and the Crips, Nebeker said.

Jacob Young is also facing a murder charge. The other two teens have not been charged.

The robbery is one of several in the Tri-Cities in the past two years, Nebeker said. Normally they target people dropping off drugs, the detective said.

This also is one of a number homicides involving teen suspects in 2022, two others are currently awaiting their own decline hearings.

A serious crime

There are eight factors judges considers to determine if a juvenile case should be moved to adult court.

They include the seriousness of the crime, how it was committed and whether it involved people or property.

Benton County Deputy Prosecutor Brendan Siefken said a majority of the factors favored moving the case to adult court.

While Rivera’s death might have been unplanned, the evidence shows the teen was an active participant, he argued.

If the crime had happened seven months later after he turned 16, Jacquez Young would have automatically been sent to adult court.

Witnesses also spoke about two incidents involving the teen. In one case, a teacher spotted him holding a vape pen. When he was asked to turn it over, the teen instead pocketed it.

He also was involved in a fight at Chiawana High School in which a gang member was being attacked. Jacquez Young stepped in to help.

Young had been failing his classes and missed nearly half of the school year, according to testimony.

Siefken also noted new laws and court decisions allow judges to easily tailor a potential sentence in adult court to factor in that he was a juvenile.

No criminal history

Defense Attorney Brian Hultgrenn argued that juvenile court was the correct place for Young. He noted the teen has no previous criminal convictions, has a lack of disciplinary history and wasn’t mature enough to require treating him as an adult.

“When you don’t use scales or instruments, you tend to focus in on isolated factors,” he argued. “It’s crazy the amount of time today that we spent talking about a vape pen that my client was caught with; how he had bad grades and attendance; how we wouldn’t give his phone back. I mean these are minor things for a juvenile, any juvenile.”

It would be hard in Benton County to find a case where a 15-year-old with no criminal history was transferred to adult court, he said.

Forensic psychologist Nathan Henry testified for the defense that Jacquez Young was not mature, and wasn’t very sophisticated compared to other youths with a criminal history, meaning he didn’t have a complex or intricate set of ethics or beliefs.

Henry said there weren’t any risk factors that should require the teen to be tried in adult court, and that he would benefit from the juvenile court process.

This story was originally published December 19, 2022 at 12:54 PM.