News

By Linda Paul, Wbez.org,

Adolfo Davis of Chicago was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole for a crime committed when he was 14. Tomorrow, in a process little known by the public, Adolfo’s advocates will step before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board to make his case for clemency. This is the story of what brought him to that place.

At Stateville, a maximum security prison in Joliet, Illinois, I’m meeting again with Adolfo Davis, who surprises me a little. He’s more self-assured and optimistic than I remember.

DAVIS:  I see miracles still happen behind these walls. So, I’m grateful that I’m able to reach out to kids and show them they reality, before they end up where I’m at, so….

A lot has happened in Adolfo’s past four years. With plenty of outside help, he’s been able to put together a book of poetry, take an introductory college-level course, mentor a couple of at-risk kids by phone and, mount a plea for clemency.

A number of public figures have written letters to the governor in support of his bid for forgiveness and freedom, Judge Abner Mikva, State Representative Esther Golar and Cardinal Francis George, just to name a few.

Read the entire article here.

Editorial, Los Angeles Times

Seven years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that offenders younger than 18 couldn’t be sentenced to death, arguing that juveniles are generally less culpable than adults because they are less mature, more impulsive and more susceptible to peer pressure. By the same unassailable logic, the court should hold that sentencing young murderers to life without parole is cruel and unusual punishment.

Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson were both 14 when they committed their crimes. Miller and a 16-year-old friend beat a neighbor and set fire to his house in Alabama, leading to the neighbor’s death by smoke inhalation. Jackson and two friends tried to rob a video store in Arkansas, and a store clerk was shot to death. Even though he didn’t pull the trigger, Jackson was convicted of felony murder. Both young men were sentenced to life without parole, a sentence that can be imposed on 14-year-olds in 38 states, including California, and under federal law.

The court should use these cases to declare that no one younger than 18 should be sentenced to life in prison without parole. That would be consistent not only with its 2005 ruling outlawing the death penalty for juveniles but also with a 2010 decision that minors convicted of crimes other than murder couldn’t be sentenced to life without parole. In that ruling, JusticeAnthony M. Kennedy’s opinion noted that 18 is “the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood.”

Read the entire editorial here.

Editorial, The New York Times

The Supreme Court in 2005 justly banned the death penalty for minors convicted of murder. In 2010, it banned life without parole for youths convicted of crimes other than murder. In two cases argued before the court on Tuesday, the justices should take the next step and ban life without parole for youths convicted of murder.

In an Alabama case, Evan Miller, a 14-year-old, and a friend stole a collection of baseball cards and $300 from a neighbor. They attacked the man with a baseball bat, and killed him when they set fire to his home. In an Arkansas case, Kuntrell Jackson, also 14, tried to rob a video store with two friends. When the clerk said she was going to call the police, one of the other youths shot and killed her with a shotgun. Both Mr. Miller and Mr. Jackson received mandatory sentences of life without parole for murder.

Alabama and Arkansas asked the court to allow them to continue to impose a sentence of life without parole for a juvenile who has committed murder. But the Supreme Court has found that there are critical differences between adolescents and adults in maturity and susceptibility to peer pressure and other forces. Relying on that insight in its 2005 and 2010 cases, the court concluded both times “it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult.” It would be as misguided to equate young adolescents with adults in cases of murder.

Read the entire editorial here.

By Sonja Sohn, Huffington Post

Today is a Tuesday. Most Tuesdays I, along with many other Americans, wake up and carry on with our day as we would on most any other day — stretching in bed, walking sleepily to the bathroom to shower and get dressed, having a quick bite of breakfast and on to what we may not consider to be a luxury, but is — going to school or work or tending the task list for the day. In essence, we are simply enjoying our freedom to live; to make choices and mistakes as we go about the business of doing what we need and want to do, actively creating our lives and our futures as we go along.

Today in Washington, D.C., however, something else far more important than our focus on our individual happiness and survival is occurring; something that indicates whether we, as a society, have matured and evolved enough to be fair and nurturing to our children; something that heavily impacts the spirit of democracy and justice, how it is executed in our country and how it shapes our hearts and minds and future moving forward. Today the Supreme Court hears the cases of two young men, Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson, who were sentenced to die in prison as 14-year-old children.

The United States is the only country in the world where children under the age of 18 are sentenced to die in prison. The Court will decide in these cases whether life-without-parole sentences for children violate the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment. In a 54-year-old Supreme Court case, {(Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100-01 (1958)] the court determined that “evolving standards of decency mark the progress of a maturing society” and should be used when determining cruel and unusual punishment. This often cited precedent has been used by the courts to define “standards of decency” at home and abroad.

Read the entire article here.

By Katherine Ellison, Los Angeles Times

In 1646, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the Stubborn Child Law, decreeing that teenage boys who disobeyed their parents could be put to death.

What a difference 3 1/2 centuries make. In our enlightened age, mothers and fathers study manuals for techniques to make children more compliant. And many of us are well acquainted with the critical mass of neuroscience establishing that adolescence constitutes a time of diminished responsibility, when the brain’s frontal lobes — the seat of judgment and impulse control — are still developing.

All too many U.S. criminal courts and state legislatures, however, have yet to get this memo.

Today, according to Human Rights Watch, 2,570 U.S. prisoners convicted of major crimes committed when they were 14 to 17 years old are serving sentences of life without parole. (Some 300 of them are in California.) In recent years, as other industrialized nations have adhered to international human rights conventions, the United States has become the world’s only nation to impose such sentences for minors, say researchers at the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Read the entire op-ed here.