Juvenile suspected of killing S.F. teen found dead in warehouse basement could be tried as an adult
A San Francisco judge on Wednesday decided that prosecutors could continue their efforts to try a teenager suspected of killing his classmate in 2023 as an adult.
Prosecutors filed a motion in March arguing that the teen's case should be heard in adult court — shortly after the teen's lawyers said he intended to plead guilty to a murder charge in juvenile court. He had initially pleaded not guilty.
On Wednesday, the teen's attorney, Adam Gasner, argued that efforts by prosecutors to try the teenager as an adult were vindictive — motivated by a desire to punish the teenager for exercising his right to change his plea. The District Attorney's Office contested that contention.
The defendant, whom the Chronicle is not naming because he was a minor at the time the killing occurred, was arrested on the day after Thanksgiving in 2024, nearly two years after 18-year-old Maxwell Maltzman's body was found in a warehouse in the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard on January 23, 2023.
Maltzman, who attended Raoul Wallenberg High School, was reported missing in early January. Prosecutors said one of the key pieces linking the defendant to the crime was a video allegedly showing the two teenagers walking together toward the warehouse in which Maltzman's body was later found, submerged in water.
Maltzman's AirTag device was found near a bus stop where the teenager and another unknown male allegedly went to after walking out of the warehouse without Maltzman, police said. The other person has not been publicly identified or arrested. A detective who testified said the defendant allegedly texted a picture of his hand, cut and bloodied, to a third-party the morning after he was captured on video walking into the warehouse with Maltzman.
An autopsy report determined Maltzman died of blunt-force trauma to the head. The defendant's attorney previously claimed in court that the two boys were amicable peers. Officials have not been able to tie DNA evidence to the defendant nor locate a specific instrument used to kill Maltzman, Gasner said.
Wednesday's court hearing was attended by members of both the victim's and the defendant's families, who sat quietly in the room with a row of other attendees in between them. The defendant sat next to his lawyer, wearing a navy blue suit and glasses.
Gasner repeatedly emphasized that the attempted plea change, and his opposition to the prosecution's efforts to move the case to adult court had not been an attempt at 'gamesmanship,' and that his client's decision was motivated by a wish for the victim's family to have closure.
'This was a desire to admit to the most serious charge that can be brought in the juvenile justice system,' said Gasner. 'That's an enormous undertaking, an enormous wish to end this case.'
Juvenile Justice Court Judge Richard Darwin acknowledged, however, that pleading to the murder charge in juvenile court would be 'far and away much more lenient than the possible consequences should the matter get transferred to adult court.'
'We're aware of that, that's not lost on us,' said Gasner.
Darwin ruled that prosecutors could continue pressing for the case to be tried in adult court. Prosecutors must petition judges to 'transfer' juvenile cases to adult court.
On Wednesday, Darwin also set the date of July 22, when attorneys will reconvene to schedule when the pivotal transfer hearing will take place.
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