NEWS ANALYSIS: Alimohamed's friends outraged by sentence

The decision by Common Pleas Judge Carolyn Temin to try Khaalis Edmonson as a juvenile has resulted in outrage and heartache for friends of murder victim Al-Moez Alimohamed. Edmonson will be released from reform school in a maximum of three years due to his juvenile status. According to Commonwealth of Pennsylvania statutes, all persons charged with murder are to be tried as adults. But the court has the ability to transfer the case to juvenile court on the basis of the mental capacity, maturity, need and the ability to be rehabilitated, Temin said. Temin said the court heard extensive testimony during a preliminary hearing from a defense psychiatrist, social workers, Edmonson's teachers at a youth study center and Philadelphia police officer Francis Welsh concerning Edmonson's ability to stand trial as an adult. Further testimony from an eyewitness, Carlos Johnson, the four murder suspects and Edmonson himself led Temin to believe that Edmonson had fled from the scene of the crime. Temin also said Edmonson showed remorse and cried after being arrested by police, while the other suspects were indifferent and "morbidly inappropriate." James Dandy, a teacher at the youth center, wrote, "Khaalis speaks from a maturing ethical value and a good sense of perspective that he daily tries to put into practice," according to Temin. But Temin's ruling has angered many of Alimohamed's friends and those involved with the case. Upon hearing Temin's decision, Assistant District Attorney Roger King said, "I'm going home to be sick to my stomach." And Edmonson's criminal record is hardly clean. Edmonson had been arrested before for simple assault and for having a gun in his school locker. Richard Rosin, a Philadelphia attorney and father of Alimohamed's girlfriend, said Edmonson had failed miserably each time he was placed in reform school. But Rosin said Edmonson had assaulted three other people before he and his friends attacked Alimohamed. Rosin also said Temin's opinion was filled with factual errors, and that she consistently ignored the testimony of Philadelphia Police officer Francis Welsh. Rosin said both Welsh and the other suspects said that all five men participated in the attack. But Temin said he believes Welsh's statements at the preliminary hearing were contradicted by the police radio records recorded during the crime. Victim Support Director Maureen Rush said she had never heard of a murder suspect being tried as a juvenile in 17 years. College senior Rebecca Rosin, Alimohamed's girlfriend said that Temin was denying the fact that Edmonson was involved. And according to Mathematics Graduate Chairperson Wolfgang Ziller, Edmonson was not the youngest of the suspects. Ziller added that Common Pleas Judge Sheldon Jelin, who presided over Edmonson's trial, shared Ziller's opinion on the case that Edmonson was directly involved with a murder. Former Mathematics Graduate Chairperson Ted Chinberg said he is not pleased that the defendant faces only three years.