OP-ED: Stop Sentencing Kids to Life Without Parole

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By Nancy Schouweiler

September 4, 2014

Jurisdictions across the country should stop sentencing kids to spend the rest of their lives in detention.

“Children are constitutionally different from adults. … Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform … ‘they are less deserving of the most severe punishments.’”

These are the words of the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, in which the Court held that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments and are therefore unconstitutional.

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DNA Evidence Clears Two Men in 1983 Murder

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By Jonathan M. Katz and Erik Eckholm

September 2, 2014

LUMBERTON, N.C. — Thirty years after their convictions in the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in rural North Carolina, based on confessions that they quickly repudiated and said were coerced, two mentally disabled half brothers were declared innocent and ordered released Tuesday by a judge here.

The case against the men, always weak, fell apart after DNA evidence implicated another man whose possible involvement had been somehow overlooked by the authorities even though he lived only a block from where the victim’s body was found, and he had admitted to committing a similar rape and murder around the same time.

The startling shift in fortunes for the men, Henry Lee McCollum, 50, who has spent three decades on death row, and Leon Brown, 46, who was serving a life sentence, provided one of the most dramatic examples yet of the potential harm from false, coerced confessions and of the power of DNA tests to exonerate the innocent.

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Pope Francis denounces life sentences and criminal penalties for children

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Pope Francis has called for an end to sentences of life in prison and said that criminal penalties should not apply to children, according to the Catholic News Service.

“Life imprisonment is a hidden death penalty,” said the pope, who also called for an end to capital punishment.

Pope Francis made the comments during a meeting with representatives from the International Association of Penal Law. They come just months after he responded to the hundreds of letters we sent to him from people serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as children. In his response to the letters, he said he was “deeply moved” by the prisoners’ words and called for “mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation.”

More than 2,500 people have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as children. The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to die in prison.

The pope’s call for more humane justice policies comes as a diverse, broad-based alliance that includes national and international faith-based organizations – including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — has joined together to express their opposition to life-without-parole sentences for children by signing on to our Statement of Principles.

Read the full story.

 

Wyoming holds Miller retroactive

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The Wyoming Supreme Court has issued a two-fold victory in Wyoming v. Mares for individuals sentenced as children to life in prison.

The Wyoming Supreme Court held that Miller v. Alabama should apply retroactively.  Additionally, the Court affirmed that a Wyoming law enacted last year that provides that any child sentenced to life imprisonment is eligible for parole after having served 25 years should also apply retroactively.

Mr. Mares was sixteen years old at the time of his arrest and has served nearly twenty years in prison.  Under the Wyoming Supreme Court’s decision yesterday, Mr. Mares will be eligible for parole after twenty-five years and is entitled to a new sentencing hearing under Miller.

Wyoming is the eighth state to hold that Miller must be applied retroactively.  State supreme courts in Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois, Nebraska, and New Hampshire have applied Miller retroactively.  Now twice as many state supreme courts have ruled in favor of the retroactive application of Miller as have ruled against it.

American Correctional Association opposes JLWOP

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The American Correctional Association (ACA) has passed a resolution opposing the practice of sentencing children to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The ACA is comprised of more than 20,000 individuals and organizations around the world in all facets of the corrections profession. It is the oldest association developed specifically for practitioners in the correctional profession.

The ACA’s resolution demonstrates that corrections officials–the people who work most closely with incarcerated youth on a daily basis–understand that life without parole is an unjust and unnecessary sentence for children. They are part of a growing coalition of national organizations, policymakers, and opinion leaders that have expressed their support for reform of our country’s juvenile sentencing practices.

The resolution calls for holding children accountable in a way that reflects the fundamental differences between them and adults, particularly as it relates to mental and emotional development.

“Youthful offenders have much greater capacity for rehabilitation and should be provided every opportunity to heal and rehabilitate,” the resolution states.

The ACA stands among a diverse array of more than 100 national organizations that have called for the elimination of life without parole as a sentencing option for children, including the National Association of Counties, the American Probation and Parole Association, the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators, and Boy Scouts of America.

Read the resolution

See who else is part of the national coalition

New Hampshire rules Miller is retroactive

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The New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama must be applied retroactively.

This ruling means that people who were sentenced to mandatory life without parole for crimes committed as children are eligible for relief and resentencing, including those who were sentenced before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 25, 2012 that it is unconstitutional to impose such sentences upon children.

The State of New Hampshire argued that the Miller ruling simply required that courts hold a hearing before sentencing a child to life without parole and that as a procedural rule, Miller should not be applied retroactively. The New Hampshire Supreme Court found that the ruling is not simply procedural but about the actual rights of children being sentenced. “Consequently, we find that the respondents are entitled to the retroactive benefit of the Miller rule in post-conviction proceedings,” the ruling states.

New Hampshire is the seventh state to hold that Miller must be applied retroactively. High courts in Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, Illinois and Nebraska also have ruled that Miller should be applied retroactively. Courts in Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania have ruled that Miller is not retroactive.

(September 2, 2014)

Healing & Hope 2014

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Healing Hope website image 9.15.14

 Join us at Healing & Hope, our annual awards reception Wednesday, November 12, 2014, in Washington, DC.

Sponsorships & tickets available here

Healing & Hope is the annual CFSY awards reception and fundraiser, which will be held this year at Jones Day. It is always an evening of inspiration!

hh wordpress nfg 9.15.2014

 

Click here for tickets and sponsorships. See you on November 12th!

Sponsors
Crusaders
David & Resa Eppler

Defenders
DLA Piper
King & Spalding LLP
Wendy Smith & Barry Meyer

Champions
Baker & McKenzie LLP
Gregory Craig
Marcia Smith & Ken Andrichik
Susan Galbraith & David Lipton

Supporters
Maya Ajmera & David H. Hollander, Jr.
Bingham McCutchen LLP
Boy Scouts of America
Crowell & Moring LLP
John & Debbie Dillon
Hogan Lovells LLP
David Frederick & Sophia Lynn
K&L Gates LLP
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Dan and Kathi Knise
Tamera Luzzatto & David Leiter
Angus Macbeth
Catherine & Scott Marquardt
Steve & Patricia Morgan
Christine & Michael Puzo
Sidley Austin LLP
Spitfire Strategies
Steve Reiss
John Siffert & Goldie Alfasi-Siffert
Joshua Toll

Friends
ACLU of Michigan
Campaign for Youth Justice
Center for Children’s Law and Policy
Coalition for Juvenile Justice
Jenny Collier
Creed & Gowdy
Haley Griffin
The Innocence Project
Jesuit Conference
Justice Policy Institute
Law Offices of Deborah LaBelle
Uri & Maria Lavy
Charles Mills
Karen & Fritz Mulhauser
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
National Juvenile Defender Center
National Juvenile Justice Network
National Legal Aid & Defender Association
RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights
Ginny Sloan
William Treanor
UMC General Board of Church & Society

Host Committee
Rick Allen
Adam Blank
Rachel Bloomekatz
Jenny Collier
Debbie Dillon
John Dillon
David Eppler
Angelyn Frazer
Susan Galbraith
Haley Griffin
Mary Lou Hartman
John Kabealo
Kathi Knise
Duke McCall
Rebecca Milliken
Karen Mulhauser
Francesca Purcell
Sara Silverstein
Marcia Smith
Joshua Toll
Jason Ziedenberg

Brutal Treatment of Black and Brown Youths Reflects Disregard for Their Lives

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By Xavier Mcelrath-Bey  

August 23, 2014

As a youth justice advocate, I give lots of speeches and presentations to elected officials, the heads of national organizations, judges and attorneys. I talk about why children should never be sentenced to life without parole and other extreme sentences.

I also helped launch the Incarcerated Children’s Advocacy Network, or ICAN, which brings together people who went to prison as children and are now working to end violence in their communities. But before I did any of this, I was a victim of racist police brutality.

As protests continue following the death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown at the hands of a white Ferguson, Mo., police officer, I can’t help reflecting on my own experiences. I certainly am not comparing them to Brown’s death. I do believe, however, that both reflect a horrifying pattern in which too many police officers unleash their rage and frustrations onto African-American and Latino boys and young men. This extends to the courts, where black youths are sentenced to life without parole at 10 times the per capita rate of white youths.

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Children often affected more by parental incarceration than divorce or death of a parent

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Medical News Today

August 19, 2014

With more than 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This mass incarceration has serious implications for not only the inmates, but their children, finds a new University of California-Irvine study. The study found significant health problems, including behavioral issues, in children of incarcerated parents and also that, for some types of health outcomes, parental incarceration can be more detrimental to a child’s well-being than divorce or the death of a parent.

“We know that poor people and racial minorities are incarcerated at higher rates than the rest of the population, and incarceration adversely affects the health and development of children who are already experiencing significant challenges,” said study author Kristin Turney, an assistant professor of sociology at UC Irvine.

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Charged as Adults, Children Are Abandoned When They Could Be Saved

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By Marc Mauer

August 18, 2014

A terrible tragedy has taken place in Michigan, with a 12-year-old boy accused of killing his 9-year-old companion. The decision to try such cases in adult court raises two fundamental questions. First, is this a reasonable course of action when the defendant is just a child, and second, what would the larger community gain by doing so?

The juvenile court was established over a century ago out of the basic recognition that children are different than adults. A 12-year-old lacks the maturity to appreciate the consequences of his actions and is not capable of aiding his attorney in presenting a legal defense. Moreover, the juvenile court has historically prioritized rehabilitating youthful offenders, no matter how serious the crime, because of the understanding that such change is uniquely possible for young people.

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