Life Sentence for Juveniles?

To the Editor:

Re “Justices Agree to Take Up Life-Without-Parole Sentences for Young Offenders” (news article, May 5):

There are currently almost 2,500 people serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed before age 18. Fifty-nine percent received their sentences for their first-ever criminal conviction. Sixteen percent were between 13 and 15 when they committed their crimes, and 26 percent were sentenced under a felony murder charge where their offenses did not involve carrying a weapon or pulling a trigger.

Our society recognizes that juveniles differ from adults in their thinking, reasoning and decision-making capacities. Research also demonstrates that adolescents actually use their brains in fundamentally different ways from adults. As a result, they are more likely to act on impulse, without fully considering the consequences of their actions.

This fall, the Supreme Court will decide if juvenile offenders should be eligible for life without parole. One hopes they will concur with the growing public sentiment that it’s time to stop sentencing young people to die in jail.

David Fassler
Burlington, Vt., May 5, 2009

The writer is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20090511&Category=OPINION02&ArtNo=905110311&SectionCat=&Template=printart

Article published May 11, 2009

Too young to discard

THE fundamental principle the Supreme Court applied to a 2005 ruling that declared the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles should apply to life imprisonment sentences meted out to juveniles convicted of nonlethal crimes.

When the high court takes up two Florida cases later this year, it should decide against life sentences without chance of parole for criminal teens.

There is a good reason juveniles and adults are usually handled separately in the judicial system.

Children who commit crimes should be punished in some fashion, but they are held to lesser standards than adult lawbreakers because their poor judgment and misbehavior reflect their age and their still-developing maturity.

Much as it seems that juveniles are committing ever more serious crimes, most are simply too young to be permanently discarded by society via life sentences without possibility of parole.

In the two cases the court will hear, one defendant was 13 at the time he allegedly raped a 72-year-old Pensacola woman, and the other was 17 when he was charged with participating in a series of robberies.

Both had been involved in earlier crimes and both got life in prison without parole when convicted and sentenced as adults. But those sentences, their lawyers argue, are precisely the kind of extreme measures that, for adolescents, fall under the Eighth Amendment’s injunction against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Supreme Court used that yardstick when outlawing capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Now it should do the same for life without parole for individuals who are, despite the seriousness of their crimes, still children.

San Jose Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12339205?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
Calif. bill would give young killers rehab chance

By STEVE LAWRENCE Associated Press Writer
Posted: 05/10/2009 02:23:57 PM PDT

SACRAMENTO—State Sen. Leland Yee believes that wayward kids should have a second chance to make good—even when they commit murder or other serious crimes.
Yee, a San Francisco Democrat who has a doctorate in child psychology, has introduced legislation that would allow courts to reduce the sentences of inmates who were given terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole when they were minors.
The new sentence would make the prisoner eligible for parole after at least 25 years behind bars.
“No one who supports the bill is dismissing the gravity of the crimes that have been committed by these youngsters,” Yee said. “What we are saying is the people of California should not be throwing away these young people’s lives if there is a possibility of rehabilitation. We ought to look at these individual cases a little more closely.”
The bill, which is on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s agenda on Monday, would allow a prisoner who was sentenced to life without parole as a minor to petition a court for a new sentencing hearing after the inmate had served at least 10 years.
The court would have to grant the hearing—but not necessarily agree to change the sentence—if it found that the inmate met at least three of eight criteria. Those standards include the fact that inmate was an accessory to murder but not the actual killer, did not have prior convictions for assault or other violent crimes and had demonstrated remorse.
Elizabeth Calvin, children’s rights advocate with Human Rights Watch, an international group that investigates allegations of human rights violations, said there are about 250 California inmates who are serving life without parole sentences handed down when they were minors.
Most are behind bars because they were involved in a murder, often as an accomplice, Calvin said. But life-without-parole sentences can be given in a limited number of other cases, including kidnappings for ransom in which a death or serious injury occurs.
The United States is the only country that allows life-without-parole sentences for minors, Calvin added.
“There is a growing recognition that young people are different from adults,” she said. “There is no question that they understand right from wrong. The question is, are they as culpable in all ways as someone who is an adult? What science is finding is no.
“The brain development that is happening in early adulthood is relevant to how teenagers behave. Our laws should reflect that.”
Scott Thorpe, chief executive officer of the California District Attorneys Association, one of the law enforcement groups that opposes the bill, said the standards that courts must consider in determining whether to grant a new sentencing hearing are too weak.
“It really doesn’t take much for a juvenile to show that he or she is entitled to the hearing,” Thorpe said. “You have such things as the juvenile had insufficient adult support or supervision. That isn’t much. That he maintained family connections through phone calls or visits. That isn’t much.
“You’re going to set up a system where hearings are going to be mandated which are mini-trials…. We’re just concerned about the cost of this and the ease of which it would be established to have these kinds of hearings. The standards are too low.”
He said the minors who receive life-without-parole sentences are 16 and 17-year-olds “who commit the most severe types of crimes. Essentially we’re talking about juveniles who commit first-degree murder with special circumstances.”
But Yee said that sometimes there are extraordinary circumstances that don’t warrant lifetime sentences—for example, juveniles who grew up in abusive environments and turned to crime, were led astray by adult criminals or were caught up in a robbery or other crime that resulting in an unintentional killing.
He said he’s haunted by one case in particular—a 16-year-old Riverside girl who killed a man who had lured her into prostitution. The girl, Sara Kruzan, is 31 now and has turned her life around while in prison, Yee said.
“She is locked up in jail, and she is going to die there,” Yee said. “She could be a tremendous role model for abused kids, a tremendous humanitarian, such an asset to our society.
“Literally, life without parole is a death sentence for these kids. In a civilized society we should not throw away the keys but give these youngsters a chance to demonstrate they’re deserving of a second chance.”

This entry was posted on 13. May 2009 at 11:27 and is filed under Legal News, Juvenile Reform Advocates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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