By Dave Kinchen
“Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office is not commenting on the lawsuit against several state officials, including Gov. Rick Snyder, protesting the state’s ban on parole eligibility for inmates serving life sentences following convictions received when they were minors”…
By L.L. Brasier
“A federal judge could decide within weeks whether Michigan’s practice of sending juveniles to life in prison without parole is unconstitutional. Judge John Corbett O’Meara heard arguments this afternoon that the state’s long practice of sentencing kids as young as 14 to life in prison should be considered “cruel and unusual punishment.”…
By Andy Hoag
“Nearly 30 years after 16-year-old Henry Hill Jr. participated in the brutal murder of Anthony Thomas, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that he should have a chance to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison.”…
By Adam and Lisa Liptak
“More than a decade ago, a 14-year-old boy killed his stepbrother in a scuffle that escalated from goofing around with a blowgun to an angry threat with a bow and arrow to the fatal thrust of a hunting knife. The boy, Quantel Lotts, had spent part of the morning playing with Pokémon cards. He was in seventh grade and not yet five feet tall.”
Read more at the New York Times…
By Travis Andersen and Michele Richinick
“A 60-year-old man charged with murder Friday in a brutal unsolved Lowell slaying dating back to 1969 still lives in his childhood home in Tewksbury, just a couple of miles from the parents of the 15-year-old boy he is accused of killing. Another suspect — who was 16 at the time of the killing and will be charged in juvenile court — owns lakefront property in Salem, N.H.”…
By Krissah Thompson
“Several liberal and conservative groups have joined together to take advantage of the moment. A coalition that includes the evangelical Prison Fellowship Ministries, the NAACP, the American Conservative Union and the American Civil Liberties Union is working to push changes that they hope will lower the U.S. prison population”…
Editorial
“There is new evidence that state governments are finally understanding what a tragic mistake they made during the 1990s when they began trying ever larger numbers of children as adults instead of sending them to the juvenile justice system”…
Read more at The New York Times…
By Jeff Kunerth
“Law professor Gerry Glynn thought it would be a one-year project when Barry University volunteered to coordinate efforts to represent Florida inmates who were sentenced as juveniles to life without parole”…
The U.S. Dream Academy will present “From Jail to Yale” starring award-winning actor Charles S. Dutton on March 28-29th at 7:30 pm at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. This is the second stop for the national tour of show, that chronicles Charles’ journey through life, from being incarcerated at a young age to graduating from the Yale School of Drama.
For more information and to purchase half-priced tickets visit the U.S. Dream Academy online…
By Staff
“In a shaky voice, the teenager addressed more than 200 fellow incarcerated youth, probation officers and officials, clergy of different faiths and other invited guests crowded into the chapel at Central Juvenile Hall.”
Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (EIN 27-3761788) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
