In 2001, a 13 or 14-year-old African-American mentally impaired child
was tried as an adult for the murder of another child, his relative.
He was found guilty and a controversy raged at the decision to jail
him as an adult. The issue was either never resolved or never reported
to have been resolved in any acceptable fashion. I would like the New
York Times articles on this cae.

Thank you.

Hi mikensandy,

The case you are looking for is the Lionel Tate case. Described by
Amnesty International as follows:

"In March, Lionel Tate, a 14-year-old African American boy, was
sentenced to life without parole after being convicted of the
first-degree murder of his six-year-old playmate. Lionel Tate was 12
years old at the time of Tiffany Eunick's death."

http://web.amnesty.org/web/ar2002.nsf/amr/usa!Open

There are numerous NY Times articles on the case. You can read them on
their website for a small fee. They do not offer their archived
articles for free.

Here is a link to the list of all NY Times articles mentioning Lionel
Tate:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?S37326651

I've used "makeashorterlink" because the above link would be too long
to put here. It will direct you to the makashorterlink site, then
should automatically redirect you to the NY Times. If for any reason
it doesn't work, go here and type a search for "Lionel Tate" and all
the articles will be listed.

http://query.nytimes.com/search/advanced

Here's the abstract to one article entitled:  Boy Convicted of Murder
in Wrestling Death

ABSTRACT - Lionel Tate, 13-year-old South Florida boy who said he
accidentally killed a 6-year-old girl, Tiffany Eunick, while imitating
professional wrestling moves is convicted of first-degree murder and
faces life in prison without possibility of parole, Fort Lauderdale;
case reviewed; photo (M)

http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F00A12F93F5B0C758EDDA80894D9404482

I'm glad to have been able to help you with this question. My search
process was somewhat roundabout, but I remembered the case and knew it
had to do with wrestling and a mentally-impaired overweight
African-American boy, and I knew I'd recognize the name and
circumstances the minute I saw it.

My final search terms (after many false starts), which netted me the
Amnesty International article were:

African-American mentally impaired murder boy

Once I had the name, I searched the NY Times archives. 

--K~

Thanks much. I needed the info for footnote refs, so the answer was apposite.