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Running head: Life without parole for juveniles

Maria Fernanda Robles Brugada CRM 212-B: Juvenile Delinquency Life without parole for juveniles April 6th, 2017

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Life without parole for juveniles

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Life without parole for juveniles

A criminal sentence of life without the possibility of parole is a drastic punishment, permanently banishing the subject from social interaction in the free world. This punishment is very controversial, particularly critical when the sentence is imposed on juveniles. I chose this topic because I have read plenty of research articles and studies about this where it is proven that juveniles cannot fairly be held accountable to the same extent as adults for many reasons. Scientific research shows that juveniles are underdeveloped and immature, particularly in the frontal and pre-frontal lobes of the brain, which regulate impulse control and judgment. Development is not completed until somewhere between 18 and 22 years of age. Hence, adolescents generally have a greater tendency towards impulsivity, making unsound judgments or reasoning, and are less aware of the consequences of their actions. Aside from important justice considerations, the financial cost of JLWOP sentences is significant. A life sentence issued to a juvenile is designed to last longer than a life sentence issued to an older defendant. Housing juveniles for a life sentence requires decades of public expenditures. Nationally, it costs about $34,100 per year to house an average prisoner. Therefore, a 50-year sentence for a 16-year old will cost approximately $1.7 million.

Additionally, I find incongruent that the law prohibits people under eighteen from voting, serving in the military and on juries, but in some states, they can be treated as adults and be executed for crimes they committed before they reach adulthood. Juveniles should always be processed in juvenile courts and not in adult courts since the consequences of this change of court are enormous. While juvenile court is limited to ordering probation or perhaps

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institutionalization until the child is age 21, the criminal court typically has the full range of criminal sentences available even for young teenage offenders, including long terms in prison and even the death penalty.

In the article “2 Teens at Center of Juvenile Crime Debate” by Bryan Robinson, he finds reasons in Lionel Tate’s and Charles Williams’ cases to question the appropriateness of life in prison without parole laws, and whether they have any impact on children. Tate, a twelve-yearold boy was arrested and sentenced to life in prison without parole under the Florida law for killing Tiffany Eunick, a six-year-old girl in 1999. Charles, a fifteen-year-old boy is facing an adult trial under California’s Proposition 21 for a fatal shooting spree in Santana High School in 2001. They are both being punished under strong laws designed to deter other juveniles from committing similar crimes.

Tate was tried as an adult under a 1981 Florida statute that gives prosecutors discretion as to whether to charge juveniles as adults. Florida is one of 15 states that grant prosecutors this power. While a report by the Justice Department last year said that juvenile murder arrests had reached a 33-year low, falling 68 percent between 1994 and 1999, some critics pointed to a study by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that found Florida still had the second-highest overall violent crime rate among juveniles in the country — a rate that is 48 percent higher than the rest of the country. Critics say this, and Tate's imminent sentence, show that laws such as Florida's need to be reconsidered.

This article is useful to compare two cases where two juveniles were sentenced to life in prison for murder cases. The author is showing both sides of the controversy about the last

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mentioned cases. Additionally, he is showing many statistics which make the reader more aware of the reality of the Juvenile Justice System. However, I think the author failed to add more details regarding Tate and his case. Additionally, I think comments of juveniles would add a different perspective on this sentencing option.

In Tessa Duvall’s article, “Jacksonville Man’s Case Led to New Sentences for Juvenile Lifers – But He’s Still behind Bars”, Terrance Graham’s case reached the Supreme Court, and changed the way juveniles are sentenced in the adult system nationwide. Graham was sixteen years old when, in 2003, he and two accomplices try to rob a restaurant using metal pipe. He pleaded guilty for being there and served a year in jail for armed burglary and attempted armed robbery, followed by probation. A year before, he was arrested for home invasion robbery, which constituted a probation violation. His attorney at the time, asked the court for five years. The Department of Corrections recommended four. Prosecutors wanted 30. The judge gave Graham the maximum: Life without parole.

Years later, his attorney Gowdy appealed Graham’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which accepted it in May 2009. Graham v. Florida is the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that said juveniles can’t be sentenced to life without parole for crimes that aren’t murder. To do so would be cruel and unusual because kids can change, the court said. As a result, Graham and 128 others like him got a chance for new, shorter sentences. When Graham v. Florida was decided, there were 129 juveniles serving life without parole for non-homicide offenses. Of those, 77 were in Florida and the rest were in 10 other states and the federal system, according to the court’s opinion.

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In this article, the author succeeded at providing many details of Graham’s case and comments of those juveniles that are currently facing a life in prison without parole sentence who are going to be retried. This article convinces the readers that the laws on sentencing juveniles are changing for the good. However, the author failed to provide statistics regarding the juveniles that are currently on prison facing that sentence (even though they committed a nonmurder crime) so that the readers have a broader view of the issue.

Generally, the media shows the both sides of the sentencing of life without parole for juveniles. One the one hand, people in favor of this type of punishment argue that the facts prove that it is swift, severe, and certain and that its benefits are public protection, retribution and deterrence. On the other hand, people against this punishment argue that it is immoral, cruel and unusual in modern American jurisprudence. Additionally, that youthful offenders convicted of serious and/or violent crimes should be held accountable in a way that reflects human rights, values and moral beliefs. Moreover, that youthful offenders have much greater potential for rehabilitation and should be provided every opportunity to heal and rehabilitate.

As of today, most of the approximately 2,500 individuals sentenced as juveniles to life without the possibility of parole now have a chance for release in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions. Eighteen states have banned life sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles. Since 2012, 26 states have changed their laws for juvenile offenders convicted of homicide (including felony murder). All but four had previously required life without parole in these circumstances. These new laws provide mandatory minimums ranging from a chance of parole after 15 years (as in Nevada and West Virginia) to 40 years (as in Texas and Nebraska).

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Thirty-two states still allow life without parole as a sentencing option for juveniles. (“Juvenile Life without Parole”, 2017).

In 2012, The Sentencing Project released findings from a survey of people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles and found that 79% witnessed violence in their homes regularly, fewer than half were attending school at the time of their offense, 47% were physically abused, and 80% of girls reported histories of physical abuse and 77% of girls reported histories of sexual abuse.

Eliminating juvenile life without parole does not suggest guaranteed release of these offenders. As stated in the article Juvenile Life without Parole: An Overview (2017), “it would provide that an opportunity for review be granted after a reasonable period of incarceration, one that takes into consideration the unique circumstances of each defendant”. In Montgomery, the Court ruled that allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity – and who have since matured – will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the 8th Amendment.

Personally, I think this punishment totally rejects the one sentencing alternative normally thought more appropriate for young offenders, rehabilitation. Life in prison without the possibility of parole irreversibly abandons all hope of reforming a teenager and thus is in opposition to the fundamental premises of juvenile justice. It rejects humanity’s future, which begins with the habilitation and rehabilitation of today’s youth.

Life without parole for juveniles

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Duvall, Tessa. "Jacksonville man's case led to new sentences for juvenile lifers – but he's still behind bars." Jacksonville.com. N.p., 04 Mar. 2017. Web. 23 Mar. 2017. . “Juvenile Life without Parole: An Overview”. The Sentencing Project. Retrieved April 04, 2017, from http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/juvenile-life-without-parole/ Robinson, Bryan. "2 Teens at Center Of Juvenile Crime Debate." ABC News. ABC News Network, 09 Mar. 1970. Web. 23 Mar. 2017. .

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2 Teens At Center Of Juvenile Crime Debate BY BRYAN ROBINSON

 March 9

"He's lost … his future is gone." Fifteen-year-old Charles "Andy" Williams' mother uttered those words after she learned about her son's arrest for a fatal shooting spree in Santana High School. Some say those words also apply to Lionel Tate, 14, who has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in the wrestling death of his 6-year-old playmate. Under Florida law, Tate faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for his conviction on first-degree murder charges. Both Tate, who was 12 when he killed 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick, and Williams, who faces an adult trial under California's Proposition 21, are being punished under strong laws designed to deter other juveniles from committing similar crimes. However, critics find reasons in both these cases to question the appropriateness of such laws, and whether they have any impact on children. "There's no question that they don't stop school shootings," said Mark Soler, president of the Youth Law Center, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that seeks alternatives to incarceration for underage offenders. "I don't think anybody would agree that a change in state policy is going to deter an adolescent — a child — from doing anything. What the laws have done is substitute a broad statement of policy for individualized justice." Tate: Case Study Of A Failing System? Tate was tried as an adult under a 1981 Florida statute that gives prosecutors discretion as to whether to charge juveniles as adults. Florida is one of 15 states that grant prosecutors this power. While a report by the Justice Department last year said that juvenile murder arrests had reached a 33-year low, falling 68 percent between 1994 and 1999, some critics pointed to a study by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that found Florida still had the second-highest overall violent crime rate among juveniles in the country — a rate that is 48 percent higher than the rest of the country. Critics say this, and Tate's imminent sentence, show that laws such as Florida's need to be reconsidered.

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"Lionel Tate is an example of the inappropriateness of the charges a prosecutor can bring against a juvenile in these situations," said Soler. "No one really believes that he should have been charged with first-degree murder, as an adult no less." An adult prison sentence will not likely help Tate, critics argue. Studies published in the journal Crime & Delinquency have said that juveniles in the adult prison system are approximately 33 percent more likely to continue committing crimes than those who have gone through the juvenile system. One expert says the approach to juvenile justice must change. Despite the seriousness of school shootings and homicide, juvenile offenders are not little adult criminals. "The laws presume that juveniles are rational beings who weigh the costs and benefits of things before doing them," said Jeffrey Fagan, professor of law at Columbia University and director of its Center for Violence Research and Prevention. "Well, nothing could be further from the truth. They're kids and that's what makes them kids. I don't think any of the people in the school shootings weighed costs and benefits before they did what they did, and they had plenty of time to think about it. I don't think anything was going to deter them. … they were driven by emotional and psychological factors." Adult Time For Adult Crime Still, advocates of California's Proposition 21 and other laws that favor trying and sentencing juveniles as adults, argue that strong juvenile justice laws are needed because previous laws were just too lenient. The fact that juveniles are continuing to commit certain crimes ignores the point of these laws, they say. "No law will completely eradicate any crime," said Matt Ross, who led a campaign to pass Proposition 21 last year. "Proposition 21 was designed to deter those who would commit violent crimes from doing so and set up a just punishment for those who commit violent crimes. Before, if a juvenile killed someone, the worst punishment he would face is incarceration in a youth facility until he was 25. After that he could go on with the rest of his life and his criminal record would remain sealed. Meanwhile, the victim is still dead … well, we didn't think that was right." Ross said that contrary to critics' charges, Proposition 21 does not merely throw juveniles in jail and give up on their future. He said it formalizes the rehabilitation and probation process, requiring juveniles to participate in rehab programs, giving juvenile probation the same standards as adult probation. And he noted that Proposition 21 is not a blanket measure that covers all juvenile offenders — it focuses on violent offenders. Reaching Out And Not Giving Up

Life without parole for juveniles 10 However, some say they are not ready to protect the public by trying the Santana High School shooting suspect as an adult, despite the charges against him. "Just from hearing interviews with people who knew this child, those who knew him back [in his former home] in Maryland, it seems like there were some pretty harsh, relentless things, some relentless teasing, going on," said Soler. "There are some things I'd like to know before deciding to try this kid as an adult." Soler said he still believed Tate and Williams should be punished, but their cases have to be considered individually. They should not be judged by the same standards as the most hardened criminals because the circumstances surrounding their alleged crimes are different. "Anybody who's a parent of a child in these situations believes their child should be punished," Soler said. "But they also want every circumstance considered." If not, Soler argues, no one gets everything they want out of the justice system. Despite his opposing views on how to combat juvenile crime, Ross pointed out that something must be done to stop children from getting to the point where they feel the need to start shooting people at their schools or go on violent crime sprees. "We have to start reaching out to these kids, talking to them, whether it be at the home or at school, looking for signs before they even get to that point," said Ross. "We have to figure out some way to reach these kids."

Posted March 4, 2017 09:11 pm | Updated March 4, 2017 09:25 pm

By Tessa Duvall

Jacksonville man’s case led to new sentences for juvenile lifers – but he’s still behind bars Mary Graham wears a vest bearing her Inmates Lives Matter campaign logo. (Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union) Mary Graham holds a photo of her visit with Terrence in Taylor Correctional Institution. (Bob Mack/Florida TimesUnion) Lanesha Graham (from left) listens as her sister Mary Graham talks about her son Terrence surrounded by photos, articles, and documents highlighting her son’s athletic and scholastic accomplishments before he was sent to prison and events since. (Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union)

Life without parole for juveniles 11 LaTonya Hall said Terrence Graham was her first friend when she moved to Jacksonville in 2000. Hall said the outgoing Graham always convinced her to go outside and play with the neighbors. The two remain close. Hall said Graham is one of the most empathetic, caring people she knows. (Tessa Duvall / Florida Times-Uniuon)

After more than 25 years behind bars of what was originally a life sentence, Jacksonville native Lavon Butler, 45, said he now takes pleasure in the little things in life. He’s now relocated to Sarasota, where he has a full-time job, a wife and two dogs. “All I needed was one more chance,” he said. Lavon Butler (Tessa Duval / Florida Times Union) o 16 at time of offense o Originally sentenced to life for attempted first-degree murder by Judge Lawrence Haddock o Resentenced to 25 years by Judge Adrian Soud o Released on May 30, 2014 at age 43 Lavon Butler keeps his photo ID from prison with him at all times. It stays in his wallet as a constant reminder of where he promised himself, his attorney and God that he would never return. “I have no earthly desire to go back,” he said.(Tessa Duval / Florida Times Union) Ralph Brazel, who was sentenced to three life sentences in federal prison for non-violent drug charges, was released because of the Graham case in 2013. Brazel is now married with children and regularly speaks to teens about his life story.

Terrence Graham receives hand-written notes from men just like him, all across the country. They thank him for their freedom, and tell him he’s changing lives.

“Hey man, I’m going back to court on your case,” people tell him. One letter writer says, “I too am one of the men that benefited from your victory in the Supreme Court.” Another mentions a family gathering. “We were sitting next to a young man & his mother who told us he is getting out in 3 months on the Terrance Graham Law. … He said to tell you thank you so much & you will always be in his prayers.” Graham v. Florida is the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that said juveniles can’t be sentenced to life without parole for crimes that aren’t murder. To do so would be cruel and unusual because kids can change, the court said. As a result, Graham and 128 others like him got a chance for new, shorter sentences. A handful were released. Graham, the Jacksonville teen whose life sentence led to the landmark decision, reads the letters in prison. “Any time you can be of some assistance or help somebody, it’s like nourishment to the body,” Graham, now 30, said in an interview at the Florida State Prison at Raiford. “That’s something I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.” Graham will be in his late 30s when he’s free again. His release date, according to the Department of Corrections, is Aug. 27, 2026, though it might be a couple of years earlier with gain time. For now, he’s more famous around Raiford for his Twix cake than his historic case. Mar...