When prosecutors and other proponents of locking kids up for life defend their position, they always maintain some version of the following:

“These are the worst of the worst.”

“A jury heard all the evidence and convicted them.” 

“You can’t just change the law. Victims would have to show up for endless parole hearings and would be re-traumatized.”

“We have to send a message so these punks will think twice before pulling the trigger.”

Today I’m going to tackle the opposition’s first “argument,” “These are  the worst of the worst.”

 

 No, they’re not.

 

We have kids serving life for a hit and run, who never pulled the trigger or knew that a crime was about to take place.  We have teens who killed their molesters. One young defendant was “the most severely abused child” social workers had ever seen. Some of these kids were obviously mentally ill when they were arrested and have grown worse since their incarceration.

 

 I know. I’m just making excuses for these kids. How dare I? 

 

Okay, but how about when it comes to adults? Why do grown men and women often get far lower sentences than juveniles?

Don’t believe me? Then how do you explain the following cases, which can be lifted from any Colorado newspaper on any given day?

 

A woman is convicted of shooting, dismembering and cannibalizing her boyfriend. Investigators find “bite-sized chunks of human flesh” in a cooking pot at the woman’s home. After10 years of treatment at the state hospital, the woman is allowed to leave,  “So long,” said the judge, “as she continues to take her medication and participate in therapy.”

 Now, we have kids who are bi-polar, borderline,  paranoid schizophrenic, who believe George Bush is going to pardon them and that their parents are the devil and who are suffering from post-traumatic stress from a lifetime of being sexually abused. Were they sent to a mental institution? Will they receive therapy? Will they be released so long as they take their medication and participate in therapy?

Not on your life.

Here’s another interesting story:

 A Colorado Springs man kills his friend and, following a plea bargain,  is sentenced to 16 years in prison. Police found the dead friend’s blood in the killer’s bedroom, the friend’s body in the crawl space of the killer’s house and a cigarette butt containing the killer’s DNA near the body. The killer denies knowing anything about his friend’s death. He also blames his problems on a long-time drug habit and said he robbed a bank – for which he was also charged—in order to pay off a drug debt.

So the guy gets a plea bargain from the same prosecutors who NEVER offer plea bargains to juveniles. The same prosecutors who say, “Abuse is no excuse. If you’re old enough to do the crime you’re old enough to do the time.” And, who have charged kids with first-degree murder on the most circumstantial of evidence. But when it’s an adult with a good attorney and when the adult has a drug habit and has to rob a bank and  takes full responsibility for his actions by denying he killed anybody, well, then 16 years is plenty of time to spend behind bars.

Previously I mentioned  the teen who’s serving life for a hit and run. Dietrick Mitchell’s been behind bars half his life now because he was 16, because, after accidentally hitting another teen  he turned himself in, because he was wrongly accused of being a gangbanger and because the accident took place late at night and Dietrick Mitchell was later found to have lousy eyesight. 

Of course he deserved life!

Think that’s an aberration? Here are a couple more hit-and-runs involving adults:

Forty-one-year Denver driver hits two pedestrians, killing one. The driver drags the dying man more than 600 feet. Apparently, the driver still had no idea that he’d hit anybody because he didn’t stop. Perhaps that’s the reason the judge charges the driver with “two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.” Do you think HE  spent any time in prison?

Once again, in Colorado Springs:

Pedestrian is struck by a Ford Expedition that doesn’t  even slow down following the fatal crash.  The defendant, 32-year-old Stony Ray Garcia,   has an extensive record, including more than 16 court cases involving two convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol, two convictions for driving with a suspended license, and many other cases including assault, larceny, theft, domestic violence, harassment and fraud.

 Because Mr. Garcia was no longer a teen he faced a grown up sentence – up to 10 years in prison. If only Dietrick Mitchell had an extensive arrest record and was a couple of decades older, he’d be back on the streets by now!

 

One of my favorite incidents involves Jeanne Smith, a former prosecutor and current head of Colorado’s juvenile clemency board, (which just turned down the first two juveniles who sought a reduced sentence after decades in prison). In the past, Ms. Smith also testified against Jacob Ind, one of our young LWOPS. Smith delighted in recounting to members of the judiciary committee the gruesome crime scene when Jacob killed his mother and step-father. Smith did neglect to detail  the lifetime of  physical, emotional and sexual abuse that the fifteen-year-old had suffered at the hands of his abusers before  killing them. (In Jacob’s case, motive doesn’t matter.) While Jacob Ind certainly deserved life without parole, Ms. Smith DID plea bargain the following adult murderer. This particular gentleman executed his girlfriend, cut up her body and threw the body by the railroad tracks.

 

Okay, so that crime isn’t nearly as heinous as Jacob’s.

 

Which is why, Jeanne Smith happily negotiated a prison sentence of twelve years.

 

And speaking of abused kids who kill their parents, we have two, Jacob Ind and Nathan Ybanez, serving life sentences. Fair enough. But what should the sentence be for a 38-year-old son who does the following to his 58-year-old father?

Throws a birthday party for Pops. Before the party Montoya the Younger douses Montoya the Older with kerosene, sets him ablaze with a cigarette lighter and says: “You are going to die today—happy birthday; you are the candle.” Several painful weeks later,  Montoya the Older expires. Being burned over your entire body has to be an extremely painful way to die, though Montoya the Younger’s lawyer described the fire as “an impulsive act” and says his client doesn’t think he’s guilty.

Let’s get this straight: kids are supposed to take full responsibility for their actions but adults aren’t — which may be the reason Martinez the Younger received a sentence of 16 years behind bars– with the possibility of parole after five.

Sixteen years seems to be a pretty standard sentence when an adult, rather than a teen, kills a family member. Here’s an adult, Matthew Schneider, whose 29-day-old son died from a brain hemorrhage caused by blunt force and shaken baby syndrome. Schneider admitted to causing his baby’s death  when he became “frustrated and snapped.”

While nobody had any sympathy for Jacob Ind and Nathan Ybanez, who were being raped by their parents before they became “frustrated and snapped,” guess it’s different when you kill a baby. 

“I don’t have any doubt in my mind what the right sentence is,” the judge said, before sentencing Schneider to 16 years. “It is not a light sentence. We have one huge lapse of judgment with tragic consequences.”

Killing a baby is merely a lapse of judgment. Killing your abusers merits you lifetime incarceration.

 Finally, there’s the problem of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We have kids who were riding in a car driven by far older gang members. The gang members commit  a drive-by, which results in death. The kid had nothing to do with the shooting, though he’ll get life without parole while the older gang banger will probably get a lesser sentence. (They’re smart enough to roll over on the younger ones or  “snitch” about other crimes and negotiate a deal.)  Okay, once again we have the following:

Twenty-five-year-old female buys the bullets that she knows her boyfriend is going to use to kill his ex-girl friend. Boyfriend DOES kill the ex-girlfriend. Judge says he has the option of giving the 25- year-old “two to six years in Community Corrections or an indeterminate time on probation.”

Kid in the back seat of a car gets life. Adult who buys the bullets to kill someone – sounds like accessory to me – gets a halfway house?

And this is justice? And these kids rotting behind bars are the worst of the worst?

America’s justice system has many different levels – one level for the rich and privileged and politically connected and another for the rest of us. One for whites and a far harsher one for blacks. And one that, when it comes to children, believes only in retribution.

Just ask Colorado’s 48 kids serving life without parole.

Just  ask the 2,300 13-14-15-16-and-17-year-olds across America who were sentenced to die in prison.

But who cares?

After all, they’re only kids.