Man, 52, convicted as juvenile in murder:

ELIZABETH, N.J.: By all other actions it would be a schedule situation of the “C.S.I.” age: a investigator working a chilly situation alights on a wander idea, and running a DNA example, discovers a man he considers is the fantastic. Thirty-six years after the criminal activity, the man is delivered to test and found accountable of eliminating.

But this 52-year-old man, now smooth around the center and old and wrinkly along the temple, was 15 at enough duration of the eliminating. And so, in a perspective the assess known as “extraordinary,” Carlton Franklin was tried as a teenager.

His situation was observed here this month in family, not lawful, assess. And Friday, after Judge John Kirsch discovered that he had murdered Lena Triano — bludgeoning, raping, and stabbing — Mr. Franklin was not officially announced accountable, but rather, as “adjudicated past due.”

Now comes the challenging issue of how to penalize him, which the assess will decide in January: Will he be sentenced according to a teenager value that focuses on recovery over penalties, concentrating on “wholesome psychological and physical development”? Or will the assess look at Mr. Franklin’s life in the all the surrounding years, which have involved 17 years in jail, but also a stable job and no lawful background in the 14 years since he was released?

Will the duration of his phrase — or temperament, as it is known as in teenager issues — be determined by regulations in place in 1976, the season of the criminal activity, or by current laws? Tried in a teenager assess, can he be organised in a grown-up prison?

Even attorneys managing the situation are uncertain. “I don’t even think I can answer, because it’s so uncommon,” said Mr. Franklin’s attorney, Edward P. Bisichio. “I’ve never seen it before.”

The country is in the center of a solid discussion about how to deal with juveniles billed of serious criminal offenses. Since the 70's, declares have progressively permitted or even required trying juveniles billed of eliminating in mature assess, though latest assess choices have shifted away from that route. New Nj, for example, modified its regulations two years after Ms. Triano’s eliminating to allow eliminating thinks mature than 13 to be shifted to lawful arrest.

About the other, however — shifting grownups from teenager assess — there is little discussion, perhaps because it is extremely unusual to have a accused, or rather, “respondent,” as he is known as in teenager assess, so far past child years.

Many lawful professionals say he is the earliest teenager defensive player they can remember. Lawyers following the situation in comparison it to that of Eileen Skakel, a nephew of John F. Kennedy who was billed at age 40 with eliminating his next door neighbor in Burglary when he was 15. But Mr. Skakel’s situation was observed in lawful arrest, as the law in that state permitted.

Ms. Triano’s eliminating had gone unresolved for nearly four years without any real thinks. She was a 57-year-old lawful assistant who resided alone in Westfield, a well-off bed room group, and was discovered deceased on Goal 15, 1976, after her office known as the cops to review that she had not proven up to work.

It was, Judge Kirsch discovered, “an utterly depraved and dreadful landscape.” She lay on a bed saturated with blood, a broke container propped up against her head, cables from an electric mixer and the shutters executed her hands and feet. She had been defeated, raped, strangled and regularly stabbed.

But the name of Mr. Franklin, whose lawn abutted hers, did not come up until about two years ago, when a chilly situation investigator made the decision to test DNA examples on proof the Westfield cops had stored, and run it against the government data source of captive DNA.

He came up with Mr. Franklin, who had provided 17 years for theft and kidnapping in a home intrusion when he was around 18.

“It was like successful the Extremely Dish,” the investigator, Vinnie Byron, said.

Had the eliminating occurred two years later, or had Mr. Franklin been six months mature at enough time, he would have been tried in lawful arrest. Instead, prosecutors had to try him as teenager according to the regulations in effect in 1976. (One of prosecutors, Jeremiah Linehan, was not created then.)