Friends and family of the late Taevonne “Tae” Latimer assembled in courtroom six Tuesday afternoon to seek whatever justice the court could offer before it released 19-year-old Logan Rain Brewer-Hearst back into the community.

It has been just three years and eight months since Logan-Hearst, then 16, fatally shot Latimer, 18, three times in the back.

During the weed deal gone bad, Brewer-Hearst also shot Latimer’s 18-year-old cousin, Daylyn Prudhomme, in the leg.

The District Attorney’s Office pushed for Brewer-Hearst to be tried as an adult, where, if convicted of murder, he would have been sentenced to life in prison. But Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis denied that request, and in December 2020 Brewer-Hearst was sentenced to 15 years in a detention center of the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice.

Per the terms of a plea deal, the sentence included four years for the involuntary manslaughter of Latimer, 10 years for using a firearm, and one year for shooting Prudhomme.

It was understood, even at the time, that Brewer-Hearst would not serve all 15 years. Under California law the maximum sentence that can be imposed on juvenile ends incarceration at age 25 — or when rehabilitation is achieved.

No one in the Latimer family expected the state to close all of its juvenile detention centers.

But that’s what’s happening under Senate Bill 823, a piece of juvenile justice realignment legislation that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2020. 

The law calls for people aged 14 to 24 who committed serious offenses as minors to be returned to their home counties and either placed in county juvenile halls, which were built for short-term pretrial stays, or, if they’re deemed rehabilitated, released back into the community under probation.

That’s what’s happening with Brewer-Hearst, per the direction of a state advisory board, and the victim’s family is not happy about it.

“I’m confused, in my head; I can’t wrap my mind around this,” said Gary Thompson, Latimer’s great uncle, who was one of two family members who addressed Judge Lawrence Killoran at Tuesday’s hearing. 

Thompson said he spent more than 20 years as a corrections counselor, racking up more than 50,000 hours with juvenile offenders, and he said, “Something in this doesn’t seem to feel right.”

He said that never during his career did he see someone convicted of such serious crimes get rehabilitated in just three and a half years. As Thompson addressed the judge, Brewer-Hearst sat nearly immobile at the defense table, staring straight ahead, away from the assembled family in the courtroom.

“Where can we get justice?” Thompson pleaded. “Where’s our justice? That’s all we’re asking for.”

After he sat down, Melissa Hall, Latimer’s aunt, said the family found out a year ago that the state’s juvenile justice detention centers would be closing and that Brewer-Hearst would be coming back to Humboldt County to serve the remainder of his sentence.

“We accepted that,” she said. “We understood. We understand this is rehabilitation. This is a juvenile case.”

But the family didn’t find out until this past Friday that Brewer-Hearst would be released so soon.

“That gave us four days,” she said, “to speak to younger siblings. To accept this as a family. To try to find the peace that we need to have in order to coexist in this community with the offender.”

Hall said the family trusted in the justice system and that they’re aware that their “side” played a role in the incidents leading up to the 2019 shooting, but what’s difficult, she said, is that Brewer-Hearst doesn’t seem sorry.

“There has been a lack of remorse from the beginning,” she said as Brewer-Hearst continued to stare straight ahead. “There has never been an apology, and maybe Mr. Brewer-Hearst isn’t sorry. But when you take a life — even if you do somehow [decide] in your head [that] you’re defending yourself — you’d think that you’d be able to look, you know, even at us when we’re talking and just show the remorse. So that makes me fear that perhaps a high-risk, dangerous offender is being placed back into our community, not rehabilitated.”

She asked the judge to add some restrictions to the terms of Brewer-Hearst’s probation and said the family has no ill will toward the state review board, the District Attorney’s Office or anyone. 

“We don’t even have ill will with Mr. Brewer-Hearst,” she said. But she called on him to remake his life and said the family believes in him — because they have to.

Hall said this has been hardest on Latimer’s younger siblings, who are now 10 and eight years old and who think of Brewer-Hearst as a boogeyman. She read a note from each of them aloud. Hall’s 10-year-old niece (Latimer’s younger sister) had written, “He [Brewer-Hearst] affected my life because I cry myself to bed most nights and I’m really sad. Most of the time I’m really more sad than happy. Please have a good day, Your Honor.”

And Hall’s nephew (Latimer’s younger brother) had written, “I thought he was supposed to be in jail until I was 14 years old. I’m only eight. I am sad, mad and very scared.”

Judge Killoran thanked Hall, saying the family’s pain was “palpable.” Unable to prevent Brewer-Hearst’s release, the judge then proceeded to add a number of restrictions to Brewer-Hearst’s probation, as requested by the prosecution.

Brewer-Hearst will be returning to Southern Humboldt to live with family for the time being. Among the terms of his probation he must check in weekly with his probation officer and submit to a drug and alcohol test with each visit. He must also obey all laws and:

After these terms were read, Latimer’s family filed quietly out of the courtroom while Brewer-Hearst, still clad in his orange, jail-issued jumpsuit was led through a side door. His attorney, Andrea Sullivan, had told the judge that he likely wouldn’t be released until after business hours. 

Brewer-Hearst was instructed to check in with the probation office by noon today.