How Paula Cooper helped change the way we think about juvenile incarceration

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An Indiana woman who was once the youngest death row inmate in the U.S. and whose case attracted international attention committed suicide on Tuesday, less than two years after she was released.

Paula Cooper, 45, was found dead in her Indianapolis home. Her cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot, the Marion County Coroner’s Office confirmed to Fusion. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police spokesperson Kendale Adams confirmed that a suicide note was found but declined to discuss what the note contained.

Cooper was sentenced to death in 1986 at age 16 after pleading guilty to the murder of a 78-year-old Bible studies teacher in Gary, Ind. Her case attracted international attention and helped spark reform of juvenile death penalty policies.

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By Casey Tolan May 28, 2015

Nevada eliminates life without parole for youth!

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We are excited to share that Nevada has abolished life without parole for all children! With one of the most comprehensive bills in the nation, Nevada is the 13th state to eliminate this extreme sentencing practice. The legislature passed the bill unanimously, and Gov. Brian Sandoval signed AB 267 into law on May 26.

Advocacy Director James Dold, Youth Justice Advocate Xavier McElrath-Bey, and members of the Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network (ICAN) traveled several times to Nevada this legislative session to educate lawmakers about adolescent brain science and national trends against these extreme sentences. Xavier and ICAN members Mario Taylor, Marcus Dixon, and Traci Rutherford testified in hearings as living testimony, showing that children can change when given a chance.

The coalition to bring this bill to fruition has been strong and diverse, including Democrats, Republicans, victims’ families, formerly incarcerated youth, and prosecutors. This new law retroactively abolishes life-without-parole sentences for all youth, establishes parole review at 15 or 20 years depending on the crime, and requires judges to consider the differences between youth and adult offenders–including the diminished culpability of youth compared to adults and the typical characteristics of youth–whenever sentencing a child in adult court.

This work would not have been possible without support from all of you. Thank you! From the supportive emails to us and the grassroots advocacy calls and emails to legislators, to the financial support and the official supporter outreach, you are what keeps this movement going! Together, we will abolish life-without-parole sentences for children all over the country.

OP-ED: Looking Back on Five Years of Hope from the Graham Decision

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Arrested in 1991 at age 17, my oldest son Ralph was the youngest person swept up in a Florida drug ring led by adults. His unfathomable fate was three life-without-parole sentences.

For almost 22 years, he endured numerous denied appeals, and his situation appeared hopeless. During that time, it was impossible for me to fully celebrate most holidays. Despite the pain, I held on to hope, and encouraged Ralph to do the same.

Finally, five years ago, that hope became more than just a glimmer. On May 17, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida that life-without-parole sentences imposed on youth convicted of nonhomicide crimes violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. That ruling gave long-awaited hope to the numerous people convicted as children and serving life-without-parole sentences in state and federal prisons. My son was one of them.

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By Esi Mathis May 14, 2015

They’re Not ‘Thugs’ — They’re Our Children

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Like most people watching the unrest unfold in Baltimore on the night of April 27, we felt dismay and hoped that no one would be seriously injured or killed. We regretted the violence and looting, and worried that it might undermine the cause of those protesting the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody and the long history of police brutality in Baltimore.

But there we parted ways with many commentators — especially leaders at the local and national levels, who used dehumanizing language to stigmatize the youth involved in the unrest. These leaders referred to the teens and young adults engaged in the city’s protests as “criminals” and “thugs.” By doing so, they invoked harmful narratives about the young people involved, the motives behind their actions and the kinds of solutions that are needed.

Several commentators have already weighed in on this issue. As people who lead national organizations working to ensure that our children are recognized and treated as youth — and not little adults — when they get into trouble, we believe it is important that we weigh in, as well.

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By Grace Bauer, James Bell, Sarah Bryer, Jody Kent Lavy, Marcy Mistrett, Marc Schindler and Marie Williams May 8, 2015

OP-ED: I Believe in Restorative Justice for My Child’s Killer

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It has been nearly 20 years since my 3-year-old son, Casson Xavier “Biscuit” Evans, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Denver. Back then, I wanted the three teenagers charged with his death to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

Today, I believe it serves no good to sentence a child to die in prison. It doesn’t bring back our lost loved ones and it fails to acknowledge that we are all better than the worst thing we have done. I want to see the young people involved in Casson’s death rehabilitated and, when they are ready, returned to society.

As we observe Victim Rights Awareness Week, I want to share the story of how I came to develop a relationship with the boy — who is now a young man — accused of pulling the trigger in Casson’s death and why I have agreed to take an important role in his life.

It was Dec. 21, 1995. There had been shootings by rival gangs the night before in my niece’s neighborhood in Denver and I had gone by to pick up her child. Casson was sleeping, so I left him and his 6-year-old brother Calvin in the car with two older cousins – one 17 and the other 22. I had been inside only briefly when I heard gunshots. Casson had been shot in the crossfire. He died in my arms.

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By Sharletta Evans April 21, 2015

Reform laws that send too many youths to adult prisons

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California hit a milestone this month with the first release under new laws of a man sentenced as a teenager to life without parole. Edel Gonzalez was 16 at the time of his crime and spent nearly 24 years in prison.

California’s new laws recognize that juveniles are different from adults. We know that a 16-year-old has tremendous capacity to grow and change, and not be defined by his or her worst act. These laws allowed Edel to express his deep remorse for a murder and prove over many years that he had grown far beyond the immature teen who took part in that crime.

But these laws are back-door fixes to a front-door problem. The real problem is the flow of young people into adult prison for life and near-life sentences.

California law allows those as young as 14 to be tried and sentenced as adults. One might think that the decision to remove a youth from the juvenile justice system would always be made by a judge who carefully considers the severity of the offense, as well as the potential for rehabilitation.

In fact, a judge does not make the decision in most cases. Instead, for most youths who end up in adult court, it was a prosecutor who decided, with no hearing or judicial consideration. And prosecutors typically have to decide quickly, without access to or the ability to collect essential information about the youth.

By Elizabeth Calvin April 18 2015

 

 

Bryan Stevenson

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Pursuer of justice

When I first heard Bryan Stevenson speak, I found myself admiring the way his gentle voice pulls you in to listen that much closer to the power behind his every word. But I imagine his mild manner is as much about delivering a clear message as it is his own way of conserving energy—for no one knows the steady pace that must be maintained on the long road to equality more than Bryan. For decades, he has dedicated himself to fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal-­justice system with the perfect combination of unwavering passion and idealism.

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By Serena Williams April 16th 2015

John Legend launches campaign to end mass incarceration

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“We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country,” Legend said in an interview. “It’s destroying families, it’s destroying communities and we’re the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.”

Legend, 36, will also visit a California state prison and co-host a criminal justice event with Politico in Washington, D.C., later this month. The campaign will include help from other artists — to be announced — and organizations committed to ending mass incarceration.

“I’m just trying to create some more awareness to this issue and trying to make some real change legislatively,” he said. “And we’re not the only ones. There are senators that are looking at this, like Rand Paul and Cory Booker, there are other nonprofits that are looking at this, and I just wanted to add my voice to that.”

Legend’s speech at the Academy Awards this year struck a chord when he spoke about mass incarceration. He won the Oscar for best original song with rapper Common for “Glory” from the film “Selma.”

 

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By Mesfin Fekadu April 13th 2015

Juvenile Justice in America: We Can Do Better

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The juvenile court was invented in Illinois in 1899. Soon thereafter, recognizing that youthful offenders often had diminished culpability and unique potential for rehabilitation, every state in the Union created its own juvenile court system. Developed nations around the world emulated the American model of juvenile justice.

Today the United States is an international outlier in the severity of its juvenile sentencing practices. Until 2005, the United States was the only developed country that subjected children to the death penalty, and today we are the only nation that employs juvenile life without parole. The Pope, U.N. officials and human rights organizations have universally condemned the way the American criminal justice system treats children — the most vulnerable members of society.

In recent years, there has been some improvement due to new (and overdue) Eighth Amendment rulings from the United States Supreme Court. In Graham v. Florida(2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Supreme Court significantly curtailed the extent to which states may employ juvenile life without parole.

Since those decisions, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming have abolished the practice of juvenile life without parole, while other states have precluded the sentence for certain categories of juveniles. West Virginia’s legislation in response to Graham and Miller rethinks juvenile sentencing altogether, and California has passed a law providing a new parole protocol for youth serving extreme sentences. The Supreme Court of Florida, considered to be among the most punitive of all states, recently decided a handful of juvenile sentencing cases and held in favor of the juvenile petitioner in each instance. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly determined that children are different in the eyes of the Constitution; brain science tells us that children are less culpable and more amenable to rehabilitation; and some states are enacting laws that properly reflect both realities.

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By Cara H. Drinan April 13th 2015

A Murderer at 14, Then a Lifer, Now a Man Pondering a Future

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CHICAGO — Adolfo Davis admits he was a swaggering thug by the age of 14 as he roamed and dealt drugs with a South Side gang.

He also describes a childhood of emotional and physical deprivation: a mother fixated on crack, an absent father, a grandmother’s overflowing and chaotic apartment.

From the age of 6 or 7, he often had to buy his own food or go hungry, so he collected cans, pumped gas for tips and shoplifted. At 10, he went to juvenile hall for wresting $3 worth of food stamps and 75 cents from a girl. At 12, he fell in with the Gangster Disciples.

“I loved them, they protected me, they were my family,” Mr. Davis said in a recent interview.

At 14, in 1990, he was out with two gang members when they robbed a rival drug house and shot the occupants, leaving two dead. Now 38, he has spent the last 24 years in prison on a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

 But his future will be reconsidered in a new sentencing hearing here on Monday. It is one of the first such proceedings in Illinois to result from the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Miller v. Alabama that juvenile murderers should not be subject to mandatory life without parole.
By Erik Eckholm April 10th 2015