Some hope for Florida's juvenile offenders

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Terrance Graham, above left, is serving a term of life without parole for a juvenile burglary conviction. Kenneth R. Young, above right, was 15 when he received four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in armed robberies.

By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER H-T Capital Bureau

Published: Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 29, 2009 at 7:38 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE – Florida’s decision to impose some of the harshest sentences in the country for juveniles who have committed crimes short of murder is a direct outgrowth of the state’s move to abolish parole for all prisoners.

But while some applaud the imposition of lengthy sentences without any chance for parole for violent and repeat adult criminals, others say imposing the same severe penalties on younger criminals is unfair. Some lawmakers are backing a move that would offer a chance for parole for a select group of juvenile criminals who are facing long prison sentences but committed their crimes when they were 15 years old or younger.

It would include juveniles serving sentences of more than 10 years for crimes ranging from murder to lesser offenses, such as robbery and battery. And it potentially could offer some relief to 14 of the 77 juveniles now serving life sentences without parole for non-homicide crimes — which represents the largest group of non-homicide juvenile lifers in the country.

But the “Second Chance for Children in Prison Act” may face a difficult time when the Legislature convenes in its annual session next spring. Earlier this year, a similar bill died in the House, where some legislative leaders appear to be reluctant to back off the state’s rigid stance against giving any prisoners a chance at parole.

Rep. Mike Weinstein, a Republican state prosecutor from Jacksonville who sponsored the House version of the bill, said the measure will have to overcome the Legislature’s resistance to show any retreat from decisions made in the last few decades to eliminate parole for all new prisoners.

“The Legislature worked so hard to limit parole, it’s going to take an effort to crack the door again. It’s a tiny crack but it’s still a crack,” Weinstein said. In presenting the measure to the House Public Safety and Domestic Security Policy Committee earlier this year, he called the bill a “matter of hope.”

“I’m here basically because I think this is the right opportunity to look at whether we can in fact rehabilitate anybody,” he said.

Weinstein has refiled the bill for the 2010 session. The bill, which was drafted with help from Florida State University’s Public Interest Law Center, would be limited to offenders who committed their crimes at the age of 15 or younger and who have served at least eight years in state prison.

In order to be eligible for the parole review, the juveniles would also have to have completed a high-school equivalency program and have a blemish-free prison record in the two years before the review.

Paolo Annino, the FSU law professor who heads the public interest center, said while lobbying for the bill over the last two years, he has found legislative support for the idea of offering some relief to juvenile criminals.

“The whole idea of an opportunity for rehabilitation for minors, that resonates with the American public,” Annino said.

The scope of the measure is limited. Legislative analysts estimated that would currently restrict the parole review to about 68 prisoners. Weinstein said although the bill would make that small group of prisoners eligible for a review of their sentences by the state Parole Commission, it would not guarantee their release. Instead, he said it would be up to the parole commissioners to decide which prisoners would get relief based on criteria such as whether they had a history of violence or whether they were the principals or less involved individuals in a crime.

“The bill is looking for those inmates who made one major mistake in life,” Weinstein said. “We’re looking for the ones who really were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Rep. Ari Porth, a Democratic state prosecutor in Broward County and member of the House committee on public safety, said he applauded Weinstein’s “courage” in pushing the bill.

“Every day I work with kids who are in the deep end of the system and there are many, I believe, who deserve a second chance,” Porth said.

Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, who voted for the bill in the spring session, said she considers herself tough on crime and believes people “need to be held accountable.”

“I also have five children and I know that children can do stupid things if they’re with the wrong people at the wrong time,” she said.

In opposing the bill earlier this year, other House members said they were concerned about releasing potentially dangerous criminals.

Rep. John Tobia, R-Satellite Beach, said while the majority of the select group of juvenile prisoners might be successfully rehabilitated, he was worried about the potential for releasing others who might commit more crimes.

“As a taxpayer, I’m more than willing to pay the $19,308 (a year) that it takes to keep these people behind bars for the time that the judges saw fit to leave them there,” he said.

Weinstein said it may take time to convince House members to back the measure since some view it as a retreat from the state’s decision to essentially end parole for all prisoners beginning in 1983 with further restrictions imposed in the 1990s.

As for some of the prisoners who might qualify for the review, the FSU law students and legal scholars are championing the case of Kenneth Young, who received four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in five armed robberies in the Tampa Bay area in 2000.

Young, who is now 24 and has served eight years in prison, was 14 when the robberies, which occurred over a month’s time, began. He said he was coerced into the robberies by a 25-year-old crack dealer who told him his mother owed him money.


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The Lost Juvies

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Youth offenders given sentences of life without the chance of parole may yet have a shot at release. But are we doing enough for them?

By Mary Ellen Johnson
Posted: 08/30/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

“In America, we recycle our trash and throw away our children.”

Those words were spoken by a mother whose 16-year-old son is serving life in prison without possibility of parole. His sentence isn’t unusual. America is the only nation on earth that sentences its children to die behind bars.

We have thousands of throw-away children wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in prisons stretching from coast to coast. In 2006, Colorado became the first state to reverse that trend, by allowing parole after 40 years. It is a modest beginning.

In 2007, Gov. Bill Ritter created the nation’s first juvenile clemency board, which has been universally lauded. However, it is distressing that not a single juvenile has yet received a pardon or commutation. Still, by creating such a board, Ritter acknowledges that, from their brain development to their capacity for rehabilitation, children are different from adults. Theoretically, those who were convicted of crimes that occurred when they were 14, 15, 16 or 17 deserve a second look.

But political reality intrudes.

We all have different versions of right and wrong. It seems wrong that a kid gets sentenced to life for a hit-and-run that generally garners probation or a few years in prison for an adult. Or that a 38-year-old man receives 16 years in jail for setting his father on fire over a minor argument (the dad later died), while a 15-year-old who kills his molesters is put away for life. Yet other people looked at the same set of circumstances and had no trouble trying, convicting and incarcerating those cases.

I know several of these young prisoners and believe they can be rehabilitated. But Americans are a merciless people. We talk about redemption but we don’t practice it — certainly not for a young gang member who participates in a drive-by shooting or for a frightened teen who cleans up after his friend kills his abuser.

The facts are spun and re-spun on all sides. There is not much compassion, but a lot of hatred. And pesky political realities, such as: Where’s that 15-year-old’s constituency? Who will speak for him?

Who even cares?

If I were Gov. Ritter, would I ever give any of these kids a commutation or clemency? What’s in it politically for him — beyond our assertion that redemption should carry as great a moral weight as retribution?

We at the Pendulum Foundation believe we’ve found something that’s “in it” for everybody. We can give some of these kids a second chance plus promote public safety plus practice redemption and rehabilitation rather than retribution. Our solution?

Programs.

Programs inside, and then more programs inside. Cognitive behavior therapy. Life skills. College. Right now, young inmates serving life without parole get few programs. However, the same bill that lowered life sentences also mandated that these young prisoners get the same opportunities for programs as those who are eligible for parole.

We think it’s important to provide them with a rainbow of proven programs. Not only will these (mostly privately funded) programs make those young inmates far better candidates for a commutation or clemency, all studies agree they also transform thinking and lives.

Once these offenders successfully complete all programs, we propose that they be given a conditional commutation or review. Inmates serving life without parole would then complete their re-integration into society via a privately funded rehabilitation center.

The entire process will take years. We don’t care. What we want to do is get them out of prison and firmly down the road to rehabilitation. Twenty years ago, when America was a different nation, these kids never got much prison time anyway. They received treatment, were rehabilitated and released back into society where most of them obeyed the laws, worked hard, paid their taxes, and disappeared into middle-class society.

We ask that some of our young inmates receive that same opportunity — an opportunity for a second chance.

We believe that it’s long past time when we recycle only our trash. It’s time we recycle our children, as well.

Mary Ellen Johnson is executive director of the Pendulum Foundation, a Denver-based juvenile-justice advocacy group.

Detroit Public Radio: Deb LaBelle and others discuss juvenile prosecution

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Demarco Harris and juvenile prosecution

Thursday, August 20, 2009

[audio:DT_8-20.MP3]

It’s midnight on August 1st and 24 year old Trisha Babcock is sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked car.  12 year old Demarco Harris points a loaded gun at Babcock and a struggle ensues.  Babcock is now dead of a gunshot wound to the chest…and Harris is charged with felony murder and armed robbery.  The Wayne County Prosecutors office has announced that Harris could be sentenced as an adult.

In the first hour of the show we will hear from guests on all sides of the spectrum.  Brian Murrow is Deputy Chief of the Wayne County juvenile division.  He will explain to us the technical process of juvenile prosecution.  Jennifer Bishop Jenkins is an academic and founder of IllinoisVictims.org .  Deborah LaBelle is a civil rights lawyer and project director of Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative.  Dwayne Betts is the author of A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival and Coming of Age in Prison .  Al Taylor is founder of Peace Project

Teens' life sentences likely began much earlier

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Kathy Silverberg
Published: Friday, August 14, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.

The faces that stared back at me when I picked up my Sunday newspaper off the driveway this week made my heart ache. In fact, the article that accompanied the photos of teenagers who will be spending the rest of their lives in prison was so disturbing that it haunted me for the rest of the day.

But my discomfort is of little significance when compared with the pain these young people inflicted on their victims or the sadness their families must feel at knowing their children will never come home or, above all, the despair of facing a life behind bars. There are no winners in this story of a state that sentences more juveniles to life without parole — for crimes other than murder — than all the other states combined.

An argument can be made that these young people — six of them were under 15 years old when they committed their crimes — must be imprisoned to protect society. Their crimes are not insignificant. In many cases, they involved violence, and most of those sentenced to life were repeat offenders.

Further, the case for rehabilitation weakens when recidivism statistics are examined. A 1996 study by Northeastern University researcher Donna Bishop found that juvenile offenders in Florida, once they are sentenced in the adult system, are more likely to continue a life of crime.

But as unsettling as the practice of sending children to prison for the rest of their lives appears to be, the real tragedy likely began many years before they even considered breaking the law. It probably began at the beginning, when the circumstances of their birth dramatically reduced their chances for a successful life.

And as much as there appears to be a need to reform the sentencing procedures for juvenile offenders, there is a far greater need to address the factors that severely limit the opportunities for too many children.

Study after study has pointed to the correlation between poverty and achievement, to the need for intervention even before a child is born to assure a safe, healthy environment.

Yet strained resources on every level, from the home to the halls of government, limit the opportunities for children.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 20th annual Kids Count report, released earlier this year, made the case in clear terms: “Overwhelming research finds that growing up in poverty — especially deep and/or sustained poverty, particularly in the first years of life — has crippling and lifelong consequences.” In Florida, one child in five is born into poverty.

The Kids Count report pointed out that poor children who lack enrichment opportunities “are many times more likely than other children to become ensnared in the justice system and less likely to find stable employment or form durable families.” Thus the cycle of poverty continues.

Research by the Educational Testing Service illustrates the learning gap that occurs early on and favors children from more privileged households. By age 4, a child whose parents are professionals hears some 20 million more words than a child in a working-class family, and about 35 million more words than children who grow up in poverty.

A conference in 2005 sponsored by the Legal Momentum’s Family Initiative and the MIT Workplace Center attempted to quantify the value of investing in early childhood education. It found that every $1 invested in quality early child care and education returns $13 to public coffers, based on savings in social services and criminal justice expenses as well as increased tax collections from now-productive adults.

If there is any question about the altruistic reasons to pull children out of poverty, the economics should carry the day.

The American dream is built on a belief that through hard work and self-sacrifice, anyone can rise to the highest levels in this democratic system. But how many more dreams could come true, how many more productive Americans could be out there making a difference in the world, how many more parents could be providing for their families, if all children were given a fair chance to succeed.

More than 100 years ago, Mark Twain saw the value of educating young people. He wrote:

“When I was a boy on the Mississippi River there was a proposition in a township there to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. An old farmer spoke up and said if they stopped building the schools they would not save anything, because every time a school was closed a jail had to be built.”

Perhaps the time has come to build fewer jails.

Kathy Silverberg is the former publisher of the Herald-Tribune’s southern editions. E-mail: [email protected]


This story appeared in print on page A10

Giving up too soon on juveniles

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Florida’s ‘life without parole’ punishments need to be reined in

Published: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 3:58 p.m.

Society cannot afford – and should not accept — criminal justice disparities like those detailed Sunday in a Herald-Tribune article, “Florida Justice: Tough on Youths.”

The story, by Capital Bureau reporter Lloyd Dunkelberger, noted that “Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.”

These “life without parole” punishments slam the door forever on teenagers — sometimes before they’ve even finished middle school.

That is far too soon to give up on young people whose minds and morals are still in the formative stage.

Some of these youths probably could be rehabilitated with education and therapy while in prison. But when there is no hope of ever getting out, there is little incentive for self-improvement or good behavior.

Another disturbing aspect to the punishment is that, often, it is not meted out in an even-handed fashion. As Dunkelberger detailed, one youth involved in a robbery got life without parole, while another in the same crime was sentenced to three years.

That violates the principle of fairness in sentencing.

Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear lawsuits against Florida’s harsh juvenile punishment policy, will rein in the practice.

If not, advocates can look to congressional legislation. HR2289 was introduced this spring.

According to a summary by the Congressional Research Service, the bill would require states to enact laws that give juveniles a “meaningful opportunity for parole or supervised release at least once during their first 15 years of incarceration and at least once every three years thereafter …” The individuals would be reviewed to see if they still pose a threat.

Clearly, there are young killers so hardened to a life of crime that they test the limits of society’s compassion. But for those juveniles convicted of far lesser violence, a “lock ’em up and throw away the key” sentence is simply too destructive.

Florida and the nation must find a better way to deal with these offenders.

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Florida Justice: Tough on Youths

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By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER H-T Capital Bureau

Published: Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 12:18 a.m.

TALLAHASSEE – While other young men were heading to college or finding their first jobs, Terrance Graham entered a state prison at the age of 19 where he will spend the rest of his life.

The Jacksonville man, in the words of his own attorney, was “no angel.” At 16, he was convicted of armed burglary. He violated his probation at 17 by fleeing police after a home invasion robbery.

Everyone agreed that Graham should be punished. Corrections officials recommended a four-year sentence. Prosecutors demanded a 30-year term. But a judge imposed the harshest sentence a juvenile criminal could face in the United States: life without parole.

Outside of Florida, no other prisoner in the nation is serving a life sentence without parole for a juvenile burglary conviction.

But in Florida, Graham’s case is not rare. Records show that Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.

Florida’s sentencing raises questions about cruelty as well as concerns about racial bias. While blacks represent about 16 percent of Florida’s population, and about half its prison population, 84 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses were African-American.

Florida has sentenced 77 young men to spend their lives in prison, without any chance of release, based on non-homicide crimes they committed when they were 17 years old or younger, according to a preliminary study by Florida State University researchers. Six of those prisoners were 13 or 14 at the time of their crimes.

A Herald-Tribune review of state records shows that some juveniles were given life without parole for as few as one or two convictions of non-homicide crimes.

Florida’s stance has generated protests from human rights groups and a lawsuit heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, which contends such sentences violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But the state shows little sign of stopping judges from imposing life sentences on juveniles or providing a path to freedom for those already in prison. Lawmakers rejected a bill last spring that would have allowed juveniles in some non-homicide cases to eventually become eligible for parole.

The controversy in Florida stands out because it differs so greatly from policies elsewhere. Florida prisoners represent 69 percent of the 111 inmates reported nationally to be serving life without parole for their non-homicide juvenile crimes. Thirty-six states have no non-homicide juvenile lifers. Researchers are still awaiting data from six states, but they do not expect Florida’s standing to change.

Other findings:

• Only Florida has sent juvenile criminals away for life for burglary, battery and carjacking. Graham is among 24 juveniles sentenced to life for burglary.

• Forty-six juveniles in Florida were given life for armed robbery.

“Florida’s practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide cases is unique among American states,” said the preliminary research report directed by Paolo Annino, an FSU law professor who heads the school’s Public Interest Law Center.

“It stands alone in its willingness to condemn young people for non-homicide offenses to life in prison, without a chance of a reassessment of their lives in some future time,” the report said.

Why Florida?

The Florida juveniles have been caught in two converging criminal justice trends.

The state has made it easier to try juveniles as adults at the same time it has increased the potential penalties for many crimes. Currently, Florida judges have the power to impose a life sentence without parole for more than 50 crimes.

Many of the changes came in the 1990s, when Florida was hit with a highly publicized crime wave, including the killings of nine tourists in 1992 and 1993. A British tourist was killed by a group of juveniles at an Interstate 10 rest stop in 1993 in a robbery that drew international press attention.

Since that time, Florida has sentenced 65 of the 77 non-homicide juvenile criminals to life without parole, according to the FSU researchers.

Other states are sending more juveniles into the adult prison system, too, although none of them have embraced the use of life without parole for non-homicide juvenile offenses as aggressively as Florida.

“It’s a national problem that has just taken on very dramatic examples in Florida,” said Bryan Stevenson, the director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal aid group based in Montgomery, Ala., and a lawyer for one of the juvenile offenders in the court case.

But Stevenson said the imposition of a sentence that should be reserved for unredeemable criminals is highly inappropriate for many minors given the large body of scientific evidence showing that young people are developmentally different from adults.

“Our argument is not that these kids can’t be punished, can’t be sent to prison for a very long time,” Stevenson said. “But to make a judgment that their sentences can never be reviewed for possible release is inconsistent with how we deal with kids in virtually every other context.”

Supreme Court fight

Florida’s stance against young criminals has become the focal point of a potentially landmark U.S. Supreme Court case.

In November, the country’s highest court is scheduled to hear arguments in Graham’s case and the case of Joe Sullivan, a Pensacola man convicted of rape as a 13-year-old. The court is being asked whether a life sentence without parole for juvenile offenders not guilty of homicide violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juveniles was unconstitutional and that opinion — which underscored the physical and psychological differences between a juvenile and an adult — has provided much of the legal basis for the challenge of Florida’s life-without-parole sentences for juveniles.

Florida’s harsh sentencing for juvenile crimes has drawn criticism from a wide spectrum of groups, including the American Bar Association, Amnesty International, the NAACP and the American Psychiatric Association, which have all filed briefs in the case.

A group of former juvenile criminals, including an actor, writers, a former federal prosecutor, a business executive and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., have joined the appeal, pointing out that they were able to rehabilitate their lives despite committing serious crimes as teenagers.

“I just can’t fathom sentencing juveniles to life without parole,” said Charles Dutton, who served prison time for manslaughter but went on to drama school at Yale University and became a successful Broadway and television actor. Dutton said he had talked to some of the Florida juvenile prisoners.

“They were kids and now they’re finished. There’s a heart-wrenching sadness on their faces and you can see the fight is out of them,” Dutton said in the brief. “If they were given a second chance, they’d be changed human beings.”

Florida opposes changes

Thus far, Florida’s legal establishment has yet to bend to the criticism of its juvenile sentencing, with Attorney General Bill McCollum opposing the appeal by Graham and Sullivan. And legislation to offer parole to some young criminals, who committed their crimes when they were 15 or younger, died in the spring legislative session.

McCollum’s office asserted “the facts of the case are straightforward.”

Sullivan was convicted in a one-day trial of raping a 72-year-old woman after he and two older friends had burglarized the woman’s house earlier in the day in 1989.

The attorney general cited a pre-sentencing report that concluded Sullivan met the guidelines for a life sentence based on his prior record, which said that Sullivan had been found guilty of 17 criminal offenses in the prior two years “including several serious felonies.”

But Sullivan’s attorney said there remains “a lot of doubt” about whether his then 13-year-old client raped the elderly woman or whether the crime was carried out by one of his accomplices. Sullivan’s lawyers had asked for DNA evidence in the case to be reviewed but the state said it had been destroyed in 1993.

“That’s been a great frustration,” Stevenson said.

In sentencing Terrance Graham to life in prison, Circuit Judge Lance M. Day of Duval County called it “a sad situation,” saying Graham had a chance to turn around his life after his initial burglary conviction.

“And I don’t understand why you would be given such a great opportunity to do something with your life and why you would throw it away,” the judge told him.

Day said Graham, who was accused of leading a home invasion robbery where he held a gun to the head of the homeowner, had exhibited an “escalating pattern of criminal conduct” that did not warrant any leniency.

“It is apparent to the court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try to protect the community from your actions,” Day said, before handing down the life sentence.

Bryan Gowdy, Graham’s lawyer, said Florida is alone in imposing such a harsh sentence for a non-homicide crime like burglary.

“If you are anywhere but in Florida, you would not get this sentence,” Gowdy said.

He also pointed the disparity in sentencing for many of the others involved in the same crimes as Graham.

A teenager who joined Graham in the restaurant burglary and hit the manager in the head with a steel pipe was later charged with the armed robbery of a gas station. He received a three-year sentence for the restaurant burglary and has since been released from prison, while Graham remains behind bars for the rest of his life.

Further, Gowdy said although Graham came from a troubled background, where his parents had drug problems, he had a relatively clean record before the restaurant burglary.

“This is what makes it, I think, shocking,” Gowdy said. “You have a juvenile who had no adjudication of delinquency in the juvenile system, had no prior conviction in the adult system, and for his first offense, which is a non-homicide, he gets life without parole.”

And, Gowdy said, as a young felon, Graham has struggled in the prison system, although he has earned a high-school equivalency degree.

“He’s no angel,” Gowdy said. “And we’re not saying he shouldn’t be punished. But he should be given a chance to prove he can reform himself.”

Judge regrets decision

Even some in the legal community regret the sentencing practices.

One is J. Rogers Padgett, a retired Hillsborough County circuit judge, who says he never intended to sentence a 15-year-old Tampa youth to four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in armed robberies in the Tampa Bay area in 2000.

“I have always been opposed to mandatory minimum sentences, except in first-degree murder convictions, it being my belief that the Department of Corrections knows best about whether and when an inmate should be released on controlled supervision,” Padgett wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist and the other members of the state Clemency Board.

“This is especially true when the inmate was sentenced as a teenager,” Padgett said. “It was not my intent at the time of his sentencing that Mr. Young never be considered for release.”

Padgett was referring to the case of Kenneth R. Young, who was 14 when he got involved with a 25-year-old crack dealer who Young said coerced him into participating in a string of hotel robberies because the dealer said Young’s mother owed him money.

“I believed (the dealer) would harm my mother if I did not obey him and I knew I had to protect my family. So I got into his car,” Young said in a statement.

Young, who once dreamed about becoming an astronaut or weatherman but dropped out of school at 13, ended up helping the dealer in five robberies, where the teenager was responsible for grabbing the money while the dealer held a gun on the victims. No one was hurt in the robberies.

Young now says his “biggest regret” was the impact of his crimes on the victims.

“They did not deserve to have this happen to them,” said Young, 23, who has served eight years in state prison. “I did this to save my family but I did not think about the pain this would cause other families. I am sorry.”

And despite his sentence, Young, who now works as a prison barber in Lake County and has a largely blemish-free prison record, said he still hopes to have his own family.

“My goal is to one day have the opportunity to show the world that I have changed,” he said.
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Basu: Dreamers & Doers series - Nun seeks to free youths destined to die in prison

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REKHA BASU
[email protected]
Twenty years ago, Sister JoAnne Talarico stepped inside a women’s prison to visit someone she didn’t know, and embarked on a journey and a relationship that would become driving forces for her life’s work.

Talarico, 72, of Des Moines, is a nun with the Sisters of Humility of Mary in Davenport. Her commitment to social justice has taken her to El Salvador, seen her marching and speaking out for civil rights and advocating for homeless veterans.

But the relationship with a young female inmate named Christine Lockheart made her work personal, challenging basic assumptions about crime and punishment and giving her “the daughter I never had.”
Talarico met Lockheart when she took over visiting the Mitchellville inmate after a nun who had been doing it moved away. She had never before been in a prison or known a criminal, and assumed whatever the young woman had done warranted the life sentence she got.

Lockheart was convicted of murder four years earlier at age 17. The victim was a man for whom she had cleaned house. Talarico says Lockheart hadn’t anticipated the outcome when she accompanied her boyfriend to the victim’s house to ask for a loan. They left when he said no, but the boyfriend went back in the house and stabbed him.
Lockheart didn’t directly participate but also didn’t immediately turn her boyfriend in. Iowa law permits accomplices to be charged and punished the same as the killers. It also requires mandatory life sentences for Class A felonies committed from age 14 on.

Twenty years of weekly visits to Lockheart, now nearly 42, have convinced Talarico that’s wrong. People under 18 can’t even vote or drink or sign contracts, she notes. “They are children and should be treated as children in the criminal-justice system. They don’t always see the consequences of their actions and are highly susceptible to peer pressures.” And they can be reformed.

There are 44 people serving life sentences in Iowa who were under 18 when they committed their crimes. That’s out of 2,225 in the 42 states with such laws. Amnesty International says 59 percent were first-time offenders. Many of those laws were passed in the 1980s by lawmakers responding to gang violence and wanting to be tough on crime, says Talarico.

She has watched an uncertain young woman mature into an articulate, creative mentor to others, getting scholarships and taking courses through the University of Iowa. “I’m inspired by the fact that she stays so positive. Sometimes I think maybe she does it just for me, but I see all the beautiful things she does … I don’t know that I could be as positive.”

She adds, “My heart aches for her that one mistake just ruined her whole life.” So Talarico is determined to get the law changed.

Nearly three years ago, she attended an Amnesty International conference in Des Moines and met others who shared her concerns. They formed the Iowa Coalition to Oppose Life Without the Possibility of Parole for Youth. Talarico spent most of the last session at the Capitol lobbying for a bill (HF 43, SF 74) that would allow work or parole releases for Class A felons who committed their crimes before turning 18. They’d have to serve 15 years before the parole board could consider, among other things, their age, maturity and susceptibility to outside pressures when the crimes were committed.

The bill never made it out of committee. Talarico believes lawmakers fear being seen as soft on crime when they’re up for re-election, and 2010 is an election year.

Phyllis Stevens is the coalition’s board president. “She’s fabulous,” she said of Talarico. “She’s conversational. She brings a nice personal style to it, but she’s also knowledgeable, not just a ‘bleeding heart.'”

As a nun who believes in redemption, Talarico offers a compelling dimension to the debate, says Stevens. You wouldn’t know it to see her, since she doesn’t wear a habit. One legislator discovered it after his rather forceful outburst at a committee meeting, then apologized, red-faced, Stevens said. But Talarico wasn’t bothered.

Asked whether her faith drives her to this cause, Talarico says, “It’s a justice issue. In a way, I’m acting on my own but in accordance with our laws and beliefs and our mission to the world.”

She answered the call to service at a time when people were drawn into lifetime commitments, she says. “I said ‘forever’ at one time, but I don’t know that we live in a society where people want to do things forever.”

So, ironically, someone who pledged a lifetime commitment to a calling has found her cause in helping undo a lifetime commitment imposed on someone else.
For Lockheart, the only way out of prison now would be a grant of clemency by the governor. She applied, unsuccessfully, in 2003.

But she’s not giving up, and neither will Talarico, who hopes that as the coalition grows broader – especially with neurologists, psychologists and experts in the youthful brain – more lawmakers will listen.

“You just have to keep repeating over and over that we’re dealing with children,” says the former teacher. “Children sometimes do horrible things, but we cannot dispose of them.”
Call it idealism, call it spiritual, call it the instinctive, compassionate response of an older person to a younger one in trouble. Or call it the Lord’s work. Whatever you call it, Talarico’s message is both profound and profoundly simple: Our youth are our future. We cannot afford to give up on them.
Additional Facts
Get involved

  • Contact your legislator to support reviving the bill introduced last session to eliminate Iowa’s mandatory life sentences for youth. Or contact the bill’s sponsors, Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Ames, in the House, and Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, in the Senate.
  • Join the Iowa Coalition to Oppose Life Without the Possibility of Parole for Youth. Sign up online through its Web site: http://www.ia4juvenilejustice.org/
  • Link here to view a video about a state of Missouri program to keep youthful offenders out of prison.

Mich. House committee hears testimony on bill to amend life-without-parole sentences for minors

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http://michiganmessenger.com/19759/mich-house-committee-hears-testimony-on-bill-to-amend-life-without-parole-sentences-for-minors

By Todd A. Heywood 5/26/09 2:36 PM
LANSING — The House Judiciary Committee heard nearly five hours of testimony on Tuesday about proposed legislation to change the way juveniles who commit murder are punished. Right now, juveniles age 17 and under who are charged with and convicted of first-degree murder face a life-without-parole sentence. The bill would change that, allowing a parole board to take testimony and consider releasing convicted youth after 15 years.

The hearing featured gut-wrenching testimony from family members of murder victims, as well as testimony of families of youth sentenced to life in prison.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy testified that the bill should not become law.

“I don’t think anyone is beyond redemption,” Worthy said. “But there is difference between redemption and the punishment for your crime.”

Worthy, joined by Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper, testified that passing the bill into law would encourage gangs to continue to recruit youth to perpetrate violent crime on the hope of getting lighter sentences. Such a situation in Wayne County in the 1970s and ’80s lead to the state’s passage of the current juvenile life-without-parole law.

Diane Bukowski, a reporter for The Michigan Citizen, testified in favor the bill. Bukowski called on the Judiciary Committee to pass the law, and even expand it to include those prisoners convicted of crimes committed when they were 17.

“I think the bill should be passed,” she told the committee. “People should remember ‘vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord.’ That is in the Bible for those vengeance seekers out there.”

The legislation did not receive a vote from the committee, as the hearing concluded at 1:40 p.m. and there was not a quorum of representatives present to vote.

Interfaith group seeks second chance for youths sentenced to life

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The coalition delivers a message of redemption in sermons at some 200 California churches, synagogues and mosques.
By Dana Parsons
May 25, 2009
The major faith traditions teach that the young are special in the eyes of the Almighty. So what does God do when one of them commits a horrible crime and is consigned to a life in prison?

He cries.

That was the message delivered over Memorial Day weekend at some 200 churches, synagogues and mosques around the state by an interfaith coalition trying to change people’s attitudes about long sentences for juveniles — especially those facing life without the possibility of parole.

“When children commit certain actions, we stop thinking of them as children,” Javier Stauring, director of Faith Communities for Families and Children, told a group of about 90 people Sunday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. “We start fearing them, we start demonizing them.”

The Bible virtually sanctifies children. That doesn’t change, Stauring suggested, when the legal system tries a young teenager as an adult. While not condoning their crimes, Stauring said a society with redemption in mind would not foreclose a second chance to someone so young.

“It’s a lot easier to lock up a problem and throw away the key and not have to think about it, and to think that’s going to make us safer,” he said. What will make society safer from young criminals, Stauring said, is going after the “layers of woundedness” that often afflict them — wounds that may stem from violence or abuse.

In an interview before he spoke Sunday, the 47-year-old Stauring said he met his first juvenile inmate 18 years ago while volunteering through his church. Now a lay chaplain, Stauring said he wasn’t particularly religious when he volunteered.

“I now consider that a blessing,” he said of the experience. “I formed my vision of God. We find him in the fringes. That’s where, if we look at Jesus as a model, that’s who he hung around with.”

Stauring shared the microphone Sunday with Elias Elizondo, who took a plea bargain 16 years ago on a murder charge that got him a sentence of 15 years to life instead of life without parole. Now 32 and living in Sun Valley, Elizondo was paroled four months ago and said he’s a different person than he was at 16.

“I don’t justify my actions,” he said, without explaining the details of the crime. He told the group that he not only deserved prison but that, at the time, he wasn’t sure he ever should be released. Only when he matured, he said, did he realize that he could change course. Instead of blaming other people or his education, which stopped at sixth grade, he set out to improve himself.

“I started thinking, ‘Is it possible I could turn my life around?’ ”

The answer, Elizondo said, was yes. “The parole board gave me a chance when it didn’t have to,” he said. “I was redeemable.”

Elizondo is the kind of person Stauring’s group wants to reach. The coalition is advocating for state Senate Bill 399, which would permit anyone under 18 sentenced to life without parole to ask for resentencing after serving 10 years. If the inmate met certain conditions, he or she could be eligible for a new sentence of 25 years to life.

Even that seemingly small window, Stauring said, would give hope to the still-young person.

The coalition’s efforts are aligned with Human Rights Watch, an international organization that has called on Congress to end life-without-parole sentencing for young offenders. “Sentencing juveniles to die in prison is cruel, costly and unnecessary,” the organization’s U.S. program director said this month.

The group reported that at least 2,574 inmates in the United States were sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed before the age of 18. California has 250 of them. The United States is the only country that imposes such harsh sentences on juveniles.

Stauring knows the statistics but said the holy books of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are his references on the subject.

“This comes from our faith convictions,” he said, “that we should never ever give up on a child — children are always changing — and that we should not look at them and declare that the worst thing they did as a child is how we’re going to label them for the rest of their lives.”

Original link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-juvenile-justice25-2009may25,0,7391881.story

Midlands Voices: There's nothing just about locking up juveniles for life

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Published Saturday May 23, 2009

BY MICHAEL NELSEN

The writer, of Omaha, is a lawyer.

Most people would agree that a juvenile offender should not be sentenced to life in prison without parole for violating his probation.

But that is exactly what happened to 17-year-old Terrance Graham of Florida. His case will soon be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court (Graham v. Florida). The matter was reported on May 5 in the New York Times.

This case brings into sharp relief the sometimes hidden fact that quite often juveniles (those under 18) are sentenced to life without parole for offenses committed while under 18 (and sometimes as young as 13). Nebraska currently has such a law. Kansas has no such law. This situation is more prevalent than one might think. Recent studies show there are currently nationwide more than 2,000 juveniles serving life without parole. Michigan, for example, has 346 such cases. In one-third of those cases, the crime involved was a first offense. Recently, the Michigan Legislature has considered abolishing its statute, since it costs a fortune to warehouse a juvenile for the rest of his or her life.

In a survey done in 2005, Nebraska had 21 such cases. Nebraska now has 24. According to the Times article, the United States is the only country in the world to lock up juveniles for life without parole. One recent study showed that in a number of cases, the juveniles sentenced to life had been accessories or look-outs for the perpetrating adult criminals.

In no other area of the law are juveniles treated like adults. A juvenile cannot legally enter into a written contract. Nor can a juvenile sue in court in his or her own name. A juvenile cannot waive his or her rights to medical care.

The facts in Terrance Graham’s case are interesting. Graham had been previously convicted as a minor of armed robbery. He was put on probation. He later committed a home invasion robbery when he was 17. Without being convicted of the home invasion robbery itself, he was found in violation of his probation and sentenced to life without parole. He is now an adult.

His lawyer has been quoted as saying: “When our children make mistakes, are we going to lock them up and throw away the key for life?”

The Florida Appeals Court, which heard Graham’s in-state appeal, opined that “a true life sentence is typically reserved for juveniles guilty of more heinous crimes such as homicide.” But the court went on to say, Terrance Graham “rejected his second chances” and “chose to continue committing crimes at an escalating rate.”

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court has cut back on the ability of states to punish juveniles. The Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that those committing capital crimes while younger than 18 years old could not be put to death. The majority held that teenagers were immature and easily influenced by peer pressures. Justice Anthony Kennedy stated, “Even a heinous crime committed by a juvenile” is not “evidence of irretrievably depraved character.”

We will see if the Supreme Court applies the same principles to the Graham case.

Turning to Nebraska, there has been a recent effort in the Legislature to do away with life sentences like this. The proposed legislation would make the sentence 50 years to life for those 16 or 17 when the crime was committed. Juveniles would be parole-eligible after 25 years in prison. Those younger than 16 would face 40 years to life,and be parole-eligible after 20 years.

The legislation stands little chance of passing this year. The penalties would still be stiff, but at least there would be a possible end date.

The bottom-line question is: Do Nebraskans want to continue locking up juveniles for life, or are we content to wait until the U.S. Supreme Court tells us not to do it anymore?