Second Fairfield teen seeks trial as juvenile

A week after his accused co-conspirator did the same, legal representatives for Jeremy Goodale’s have filed to have him tried as a juvenile in the murder case of Fairfield Spanish Teacher Nohema Graber.

While Willard Chaiden Miller’s request last week was filed as a reverse waiver, Goodale’s motion for a change of jurisdiction would have the same effect: moving jurisdiction to a Juvenile Court that would lose jurisdiction by the 16-year-old’s eighteenth birthday.

Public records showing the state of Iowa’s response are not yet available as of Wednesday morning, but the prosecution’s reaction to Miller’s motion last week suggests resistance is likely.

“There could be no reasonable prospects for rehabilitating the child in the Juvenile Court system before the Defendant turns eighteen and ‘ages out’ of that system,” Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding wrote in a resistance to Miller’s motion. “If the 16-year-old defendant is processed under the Juvenile Court system and adjudicated on a charge of murder in the first degree, the adjudicating court would lose jurisdiction over the Defendant at eighteen, and justice would not be done. The State believes there is no reasonable prospect of rehabilitating a premeditated murderer in less than 24 months.”

Both teens are scheduled for a hearing on the motions Jan. 27, with Millard’s slated for 9 a.m. and Goodale for 11 a.m., according to an order signed by Shawn Showers, the recently appointed judge for both cases.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com