News

By Ronald D. Simpson II
February 10, 2014

My only son, Ronald D. Simpson III, was murdered on Father’s Day 2001. He was 21 years old.

His killer was a 14-year old boy who was under the mistaken impression that my son was physically abusing his sister, who was my son’s girlfriend.

I was heartbroken. But when it was time for the child’s trial, my son’s mother and I advocated for his killer to be processed in the juvenile system. We wanted him tried there, held there after his conviction and treated there to prepare him for release. The judge granted our wishes. The young teen was sentenced in juvenile court and told that he would be released at 21 if he met the court’s requirements and demonstrated his rehabilitation. He succeeded and was released.

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By Beth Schwarzapfel
Al Jazeera America

Jennifer Pruitt can hardly remember a time when she felt safe. She says her father beat her until her eyes were blackened. He beat her mother and brothers. He drank and crashed their family cars, she says, and then he came home and beat them some more. And starting when she was about 10, Jennifer says, Denny Pruitt would arrange some alone time with her in a bedroom. When she told her mother about the abuse, her father called Jennifer a bitch and a liar. When she ran away from home, which she did increasingly often, the police would tell her she should feel lucky she had two parents, and then bring her back home.

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On Point with Tom Ashbrook
January 22, 2014

Fighting for life without parole for young offenders. Tough states do not want to back down – or re-open old cases.

Jody Kent Lavy, Director & National Coordinator of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth,  Jeanne Bishop, whose sister was killed by a teen, and New York Times national legal correspondent Erik Eckholm were among the featured guests in this interview segment.

Listen to the interview

By Nancy Gertner
January 19, 2014

Three decades ago, Edward Palmariello, 17, and his 21-year-old friend Bruce Chambers were arrested in the murder of Edward’s mother, Marion. Then a defense attorney, I represented Edward at trial. The jury found both men guilty and the sentence was mandatory — life in prison without any possibility of parole.

The Commonwealth’s story in court was simple: Edward and his mother fought all the time. He had said things to her like “Shut up or I’m going to cut you up and put you into the toilet bowl,” and he once waved an open switchblade at her. On another occasion, while Edward and Bruce were listening to music, Bruce got into the act. When Edward’s mother yelled at them, Bruce countered, “I’d like to take [your] mother and tie her up and gag her and stick her on the first floor just to shut her up.”

On the day of the killing, Edward and Bruce were repairing plaster and painting in the Palmariello home. Another trivial fight started, this time over where the paint can should be stored. As Edward’s mother stood up to grab the paint, Bruce took a cord he was using in his work and threw it over her head. She fell forward, the cord around her neck, and strangled. Edward, because of his threats before her death and his later efforts to cover it up, was charged alongside Bruce in the killing. Their defense, which the jury rejected, was that it had been an accident. Weakened by emphysema, asthma, and pneumonia, Marion Palmariello was especially vulnerable.

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