State District Judge James Waylon Counts this morning ruled that Cody Posey will be committed to the state Children Youth and Families Department until he is 21 and must receive treatment at the Sequoia Adolescent Treatment Center in Albuquerque in the July 2004 killings of his father, stepmother and stepsister.

See The Associated Press story here.

Counts reaffirmed the guilty verdicts of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and four counts of evidence tampering returned by a state District Court jury in Alamogordo on Feb. 7.

But he said his denial of prosecutors' motion to have Posey sentenced as an adult -- facing up to 60 years in prison -- was "not a finding that the killing were justified."

Counts found that Posey, who was 14 at the time of the killings, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, but not an antisocial personality disorder or conduct disorder and was therefore "relatively treatable."

The judge also found that facilities, such as the Sequoia center, were available in New Mexico for treatment, and that because of the "situational nature" of Posey's crimes, the 16-year-old was "less likely to reoffend."

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