Red Lake Shootings

Minneapolis (AP) ― Things looked grim for Louis Jourdain last March.

Federal prosecutors charged the teenage cousin of the Red Lake school gunman with conspiracy to commit murder. They tried to move his case into adult court. The 17-year-old could have gotten a lengthy prison term.

Now, Jourdain has admitted to a much less serious crime, and prosecutors agreed to drop the murder conspiracy charge. The judge kept his case in juvenile court, which would generally mean he can't be held past his 21st birthday. A former federal prosecutor said he wouldn't be surprised if Jourdain, the son of tribal Chairman Floyd Jourdain Jr., goes free after his sentencing in December.

Jourdain was arrested a week after the March 21 shooting that killed 10 people, including 16-year-old gunman Jeff Weise. Jourdain was still in custody on Tuesday, his father said.

Jourdain admitted to making "threatening interstate communications." It carries a five-year maximum sentence, though federal sentencing commissions would probably call for two or fewer, said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Washburn, now an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota.

"It's not a very serious statute," Washburn said. "Among federal statutes, this is on the very mild end of maximum sentences."

Charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States were dropped.

Jourdain's case was in federal court because the shootings happened on the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

Washburn got extensive experience prosecuting cases in Indian country as a prosecutor in New Mexico. An adult he prosecuted under the same law Jourdain admitted violating received a two-year prison sentence -- and that man had threatened federal judges, Washburn said.

U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger has refused to talk about the Jourdain case because it's in juvenile court, so it wasn't clear why he agreed to the plea rather than taking the case to a trial before Judge Donovan Frank.

Frank earlier refused to move Jourdain into adult court, and wrote that the teen "posed significant promise for rehabilitation." Washburn thinks those signals may have led Heffelfinger to accept a plea to the less serious charge.

"Frankly this judge hasn't acted in a way that he's particularly impressed by the facts of this case," Washburn said.

"You can imagine another judge coming at things differently: 'We've got 10 homicides here, someone needs to pay.' This judge didn't take that approach."

Federal juvenile prosecutions are rare. State prosecutors handle most juvenile matters, but youths on Indian reservations are under federal jurisdiction. Even then, less serious matters are generally left to tribal courts, Washburn said. He estimated there may be as few as 60 federal juvenile prosecutions a year nationwide.

Of 188,310 inmates in federal custody, just 217 are juveniles, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Frank will have wide discretion in how he sentences Jourdain, said Barry Feld, a law professor at the University of Minnesota.

He could send Jourdain "home with no consequences whatsoever, could send him to a juvenile detention facility, or anything in between," such as counseling, or an outpatient facility, Feld said.

Federal Judge Charles B. Kornmann, who handles prosecutions of juveniles in South Dakota, said he avoids sentencing them to lockups because the Bureau of Prisons has no facility of its own, meaning it must contract with other facilities.

"They have very little experience" handling juveniles, he said.

Kornmann said he instead sends juveniles to facilities where he thinks they can get help, such as a halfway house.

On the Red Lake reservation Wednesday, a number of people approached by a reporter declined to talk about Jourdain's plea. If they did, they wouldn't allow their name to be used.

Tim Savior, the director of public safety on the reservation, said people would rather focus on "the healing process" than be reminded of the shootings.

"Kids ... are very resilient," Savior said. "I've got to work to keep that momentum going."

Doris Berndt, whose half-sister Neva Rogers was a teacher killed at the school by Weise, said her family was disappointed they wouldn't get to see Louis Jourdain in court to find out what he did or didn't know. Hearings and filings in the matter have been secret.

"He's 17 years old, and he has a strong knowledge of the computer," Berndt said in a telephone interview from her home in Pillager, off the reservation. "He knows what's going on. It's not fair to our family."

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