Joshua Johnson has been charged as an adult in the strangulation death of his grandmother.A judge has decided a Dalton, Ga., teen should be tried on murder charges in Juvenile Court, which could alter significantly how long he would spend in jail if found guilty.
Whitfield County Judge David Blevins decided that 17-year-old Joshua Johnson has been detained for the last two years because he’s been under house arrest with an ankle monitor. That decision means that, under state law, prosecutors didn’t indict Joshua in a timely manner, within 180 days from his arrest, and his case will go before Juvenile Court.
Prosecutors plan to file an appeal this week, hoping the higher court will disagree with the judge’s decision.
Johnson was charged with strangling his grandmother, Lorraine Frazier, in October 2010 when he was 15. She was found dead on the floor of her bathroom, and police said an autopsy showed she had been strangled with a cord. Johnson and his mother were living with Frazier at the time of her death.
The teen has maintained his innocence, and his attorneys have asked for Frazier’s psychiatric records, which could show the 57-year-old woman had been suicidal, according to Johnson’s attorney, L. David Wolfe.