Youngest lifer back in jail: (why) are(n’t) you surprised?
Lionel Tate, sentenced to life without parole at age 14 is back in prison after pleading guilty to holding up a pizza delivery man. Tate was sentenced to life for an incident that occurred when he was 12, in which a 6 year old girl was killed. Tate alleged that she died as a result of wrestling moves gone wrong. He’s just 20 now.
Tate spent three years in prison before he was released pursuant to a new plea agreement. But by then, had a troubled child been lost forever?
Certainly, a life was lost and it is probably indisputable that Tate was responsible to some degree. But what punishment does that warrant? Especially for someone that young? Is putting such a young child in prison the right thing to do in this circumstance? If found guilty, he must “pay”, certainly, but with overwhelming evidence of the slow development of adolescents (he wasn’t even a teen when this happened), should the appropriate sentence have been some form of strong rehabilitation?
We’ve all read the studies and reports that lay out the detrimental impact of housing juveniles and non-violent offenders with violent offenders – the uninitiated emerge from such situations hardened; no better than they were before they went in.
So was this new crime committed by Tate a foregone conclusion? Should we be surprised or even disappointed? Did the three years he spent in the company of older, more experienced criminals wipe away any hope of him leading a productive life? (I have been unable to discover whether he spent those three years in prison or some sort of juvenile detention facility. Let us assume he spent them in a real prison, for he is certainly not the only juvenile to be sentenced to such illustrious company.)
Tell an adult that he is a bad person often enough and he’ll start acting like it. One can only speculate with fear the impact it has on a 12-year old.
Should Tate’s case illustrate the need for more nuanced punishment schemes? Or is he undeserving of any lifeline, despite his tender age? Was the future etched in stone when he entered that prison?
I don’t know the answer, but it’s certainly worth thinking about.
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about 3 years ago
I think you are exactly right. I can’t fathom any reason to ever incarcerate juveniles in adult prison, regardless of the crime, but apparently there are few, if any options for violent juvenile offenders. It’s absolutely clear that these juveniles enter prison culture and must immediately either stand up to the testing they’re faced with as a matter of course and become more violent (therefore subjecting themselves to punishment from both fellow prisoners and corrections officers), or they become prey to sexual predators. If a juvenile this young was placed in adult prison, I doubt standing up for himself was an option. Many of our juvenile LWOPs in Colorado end up spending years in administrative segregation (Supermax) because of all of the violence that surrounds them upon entry into the system. Adult prison (especially for our LWOPs) provides no access to rehabilitation, therapy (which clearly, this kid should have had) or education. They merely survive.
about 3 years ago
If I wanted to do a parody of what a soft-on-crime bleeding heart liberal would write, I don’t think I could do better than Gideon’s post.
“Certainly, a life was lost and it is probably indisputable that Tate was responsible to some degree.” First of all, the victim’s name was Tiffany Eunick (I knew that off the top of my head, btw). Amazing how the victims always seem to be marginalized. Second of all, I love the pure mush of “responsible to some degree”. Come on, he was 100% responsible. He did serious damage to this six year old girl, and the jury found that his “wrestling move” story was bullshit.
Then we have a whole lot of speculation as to the people with whom he was incarcerated etc. It’s, of course, highly unlikely that a 12 year old was incarcerated with adult criminals, but you assume that. And, of course, the bottom line is that for killing a 6 year old girl he spent a scant 3 years incarcerated.
Then we have a “blame the system” mentality, as if Lionel Tate, as an 18 year old, did not know better than to stick a gun in some poor slob who’s just working for a living. My takeaway from this case is that we are fools for letting juvenile murderers get out so quick. That pizza delivery guy could have easily been killed. Simply put, there seems to be an unstated idea that therapeutic outcomes with 12 year old killers will be good, if we just do the right amount of rehabilitation.
I know that it’s in your DNA to sympathize with criminals. But can’t you get it that when we take an approach other than incapacitation that we take risks with innocent lives. I remember a debate I had about another Florida killer, the 14 yo who executed his teacher. I remember agreeing that death would be preferable to letting this kid out, ever (subject to extraordinary governor pardons). People were aghast and horrified at what a barbarian I was, until I pointed out that 14 year old killers are not that rare and that most of them would get out and of those who got out, some would re-offend violently. You see, it’s a trade-off, yeah, it’s harsh to take a 14 year old and say, “Kid, you’re NEVER getting out.” But it’s more harsh, in my opinion, to foist killers on society when reoffense is a “foregone conclusion”. I wish you guys could own up to that instead of making some lame-o “if only we tried to rehabilitate these kids” cop-out.
about 3 years ago
SPO: If you really can’t fathom the point of the post or the message behind it, then…well, I’m not surprised.
It also strikes me as odd that you keep expecting anything different from my posts. This is a blog written by me – a public defender. I come to these stories from a certain perspective and I write only about one aspect of the story, which is the message. This is not a news blog, which covers all sides. I don’t know why you keep expecting that one day I will wake up and decide I want to be a journalist.
about 3 years ago
I get the message of the post. I am just ripping on it. I mean, jesus, is the echo chamber so loud that “responsible to some degree” seems like a good characterization of young Lionel’s responsibility for Tiffany’s death? It’s self-parody.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why you think that I don’t understand what you’re saying. It’s not like your soft-on-criminals approach is all that novel. Remember too, we did go tete-a-tete in a debate on here about the “my lawyer was ineffective during plea bargaining so, even though I got a fair trial, I would have taken the plea deal that was on the table, so the government has to offer it to me now or release me” argument, and as I recall, I got the better of that one.
about 3 years ago
You didn’t “get the better of me”. I just stopped responding to you.
about 3 years ago
Gideon,
Your lack of knowledge about the facts of this case is embarrassing, and makes your bloggins so speculative as to become detrimental to meaningful discussion on the subject. Your comment, “lets assume” he spent the three years in an adult prison for violent offenders seems most out of place. If he was sentenced at 15 and got out at 18, this is typical of the juvenile system; but a little research surely could have turned up the truth. Moreover, these facts seem to show us that criminals are usually not one and done, not that the system creates criminals; this kid killed a six year old girl for god’s sake!
about 3 years ago
Oh, I did, Gideon. I remember you simply stopped answering when I quoted case law and pointed out the ratio decidendi of Strickland and Cronic.
about 3 years ago
SPO: If you say so. Let me ask you this. Why do you believe that there shouldn’t be a right to effective assistance of counsel during the pre-trial stage of a criminal prosecution?
about 3 years ago
Let me reproduce the paragraph from my post that you quote (incompletely):
Did the three years he spent in the company of older, more experienced criminals wipe away any hope of him leading a productive life? (I have been unable to discover whether he spent those three years in prison or some sort of juvenile detention facility. Let us assume he spent them in a real prison, for he is certainly not the only juvenile to be sentenced to such illustrious company.)
Read that again. See if you understand what I said.
“These facts” show us that he committed another crime. My post was exploring one possibility why. Obviously, you chose to ignore that. Thanks for furthering the conversation.
Way to also ignore the last paragraph of my post.
about 3 years ago
Really having second thoughts already about jumping in here, but I just can’t help myself. I laughed out loud, SPO, when you went from complaining about Gideon “marginalizing” victims to referring to the second victim – a pizza delivery man – as a “poor slob.” I imagine you did not mean to marginalize or demean that person, but it was a poor choice of words to say the least.
about 3 years ago
I meant “poor slob” as a synonym for “poor bastard”, i.e., someone who deserves sympathy for getting screwed over. In any event, I agree that the word choice was poor, and is offensive. I didn’t mean it the way it came out, but nonetheless I apologize for its offensiveness.
As for Gideon’s challenge, I will point out that under Supreme Court Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, the right to effective counsel is to ensure that the accused gets a fair trial.
In the context of the “I would have pled guilty but for the ineffective rep of counsel”, well, the criminal, assuming no other reversible errors, got a fair trial as a result of the ineffective rep. So, how is it possible (putting aside the obvious problems with ordering the state to make a plea bargain, which are legion) that the violation of a right to effective assistance, which had no effect on the fairness of the trial, can be the basis of a remedy. In other words, the criminal got what the right was supposed to give him–how can he get relief, unless we want to expand the right to effective counsel . . . . And that’s fine. But you have to make the argument.
about 3 years ago
I simply find it jarring that our society will assume a minor who follows the law is incapable of making logical and informed decisions, yet a minor who breaks the law is assumed to have the mental capacity and foresight of an adult.
It says less of what we think of children and more of what we believe about ourselves.
about 3 years ago
I stumbled across this blog , literally, because I was looking for a synonym for “slob” for a paper I was writing for a masters course. As there was some discussion of the use of the word in this blog, it popped up in response to my search. In my context, it was someone who is messy. Interestingly, I never found a suitable word, so stayed with slob.
However, since just about everything interests me, I read this blog and must say I enjoyed the pro- con discourse. I especially loved the no flaming (ala Sat. Night Live, “Jane, you ignorant…”) While the posts are escalated, they are civil. Congrats to all of you for your passion and restraint!
Personally, I have always wondered what the point of keeping a life sentenced prisoner alive is? It seems to me they have been deemed as having no value to society and are a threat to it. Thus, why then do the taxpayers (society) have to pay to keep the person alive? Some deem death sentences cruel and unusual punishment. From what I see, there are also humane means by which to send people to their death. Suicides do it all the time with various medicines. In some cases, less pain than having to live an incarcerated life.
This is not a moral argument, merely an economic one. The funds saved by not paying for life support of the terminally incarcerated could be used for better DNA testing that seems to be so exculpating of imprisoned people lately. A more thorough investigation of evidence in this manner (expensive as it is) would limit the number of false convictions when biologic evidence is available.
Anyway, just my thoughts.
about 3 years ago
Thanks for your thoughts.
On one hand you said you want to save funds and invest them in DNA testing, and on the other you say there is no point to keeping lifers alive.
I’m pretty sure you have at least been marginally exposed to the news coverage of exonerations of inmates either on death row or serving life sentences (or even other sentences). The problem with the death penalty is finality. We better be absolutely damn sure that the man (or woman) being executed is actually guilty of the crime.
The DNA exonerations over the past so many years have completely destroyed any confidence in that proposition.
Additionally, if you look at studies that have compared costs, housing a death row inmate is far more expensive than housing a lifer.