Teen who killed family given child's sentence

Judge finds Cody Posey, 16, can be rehabilitated

Cody Posey, 16, will be in state custody until he is 21.

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ALAMOGORDO, New Mexico (AP) -- A 16-year-old convicted of killing his family on newsman Sam Donaldson's ranch was sentenced Thursday as a juvenile and ordered held in state custody until he turns 21.

State District Judge James Waylon Counts ruled that the state failed to prove Cody Posey could not be rehabilitated -- the overriding factor in sentencing him as a juvenile.

Prosecutors had wanted the teen sentenced as an adult, which could have put him behind bars for 50 years.

Posey was 14 when he shot his father, stepmother and 13-year-old stepsister in July 2004 on the southern New Mexico ranch where his father worked as a foreman. The teen was convicted February 7 of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Counts said Thursday that Posey had been convicted of the most serious crime possible, and that the act was willful, which weighed against him.

But the judge also found that the teen suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and said he was not convinced Posey had any anti-social personality traits or conduct disorders.

Posey's lawyer Gary Mitchell contended that the boy had acted out after years of physical and psychological abuse by his father and stepmother.

The night before the shootings, Paul Posey burned his son with a welding rod after the teen refused to have sex with his stepmother, Mitchell said.

Prosecutors argued that the boy deliberately killed his family, buried their bodies in a manure pile, then lied about it.

Prosecutor Sandra Grisham said Posey already committed "the worst possible behavior that we can think of to use to predict his future behavior."

In court Wednesday, Posey apologized for the killings and pleaded for an opportunity to better himself. After the sentencing Thursday, he smiled as sheriff's deputies put him in a car and drove him away.

Mitchell said the teen told him, "Don't worry, Mr. Mitchell, I'm not going to disappoint anybody."