Category Archives: juveniles

A second chance for juveniles

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Think about when you were 14, 15 or even 18 years old. You may have been the jock, the smartypants, the nerd, the weirdo, the hot chick, the best friend or home schooled. Think about the worst thing you did those years.

Now imagine that the worst thing you did – if it was legal – was deemed inappropriate by society. Inappropriate to the tune of 20 years in jail or 30 years or 40 or 60. Or just remember that time you bullied someone or you stole a lipstick or you made fun of a teacher or you took your dad’s car and went for a joyride or you made up stories about that girl because she wouldn’t make out with you.

Now, thinking about yourself, do you cringe? Have you spent time over the years wondering who that kid was and being glad that you’re not that anymore? Have you spent any time thinking “boy, I was a douche back then, but I’ve grown and changed?”

We all have. The only difference is that some of us are stuck in jail for extremely long sentences for things we did when we were barely out of middle school. CT mandates that all children above the age of fourteen, charged with serious felonies, are automatically treated as adults and exposed to adult sentences, ranging from maximums of 20 years to 60 years. And there are about 170 people who are currently serving such sentences for things they did between 14-17.

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Treating juveniles as adults: there are no winners

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Just try to imagine the circumstances that lead a man to abandon his teenage son in a criminal courtroom and walk away, never to have contact with him again. Imagine the trauma already felt by a 15 year old boy, charged as an adult, told he’d have to walk around with a felony conviction and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and then turn to see the only person there to support him – his father – leave during a recess and never come back.

That’s what happened to one young teen in New London, CT, back in February. The Day has this absolutely heartbreaking story of the problems of juvenile sex offenders, the harsh laws that we have and the absolute lack of any viable treatment options for these teens (The Day has chosen to name the 15 year because he’s being tried as an adult; I disagree with their tact, so I’m not going to name him). Continue reading →

We thought of the children

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For years I’ve written about the sorry state of the juvenile justice system and the inattention we pay to the lives of the children who get caught up in it, sometimes through no fault of their own. So it heartens me (with some pretty important reservations) to see this report [PDF] from the Justice Policy Institute about the remarkable transformation of CT’s juvenile justice system from one of complete failure to that of a role model for the rest of the country in about 10 short years. From their executive summary [PDF]:

In 2007, Connecticut made national headlines when it passed a law ending its status as one of just three states that automatically tried and punished all 16 and 17 year-olds as adults. Yet this historic   “Raise the Age” legislation is just one of many reforms enacted by Connecticut’s juvenile justice system in recent years. Propelled by a determined coalition of advocates and public sector innovators, Connecticut has forged a new consensus for progressive change in juvenile justice, and it has transformed a previously wasteful, punitive, ineffective, and often abusive juvenile justice system into a national model – at no additional cost to taxpayers. Perhaps more than any other state, Connecticut has absorbed the growing body of knowledge about youth development and delinquency, adopted its lessons, and used the information to fundamentally re-invent its approach to juvenile justice. As a result, Connecticut’s system today is far and away more successful, more humane, and more cost-effective than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

And the evidence is staggering: residential commitments for juveniles are down 70% despite the influx of 16 and 176 year olds into the system; the number of juveniles locked up for “status offenses” (missing school, etc.) has become negligible; the number of youth tried and convicted as adults has also drastically declined:

For decades, Connecticut was one of only three states that prosecuted and punished all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. In 2007, the state enacted historic legislation to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18, effective January 1, 2010 for 16 year olds and July 1, 2012 for 17 year olds. Even before 17 year-olds became eligible for juvenile court on July 1, 2012, the new law had enabled 8,325 16 year-olds to avoid prosecution and punishment in the adult criminal justice system. Extending juvenile jurisdiction to 16 year-olds has increased juvenile caseloads far less than expected (22 percent actual versus 40 percent projected); as a result the state spent nearly $12 million less in fiscal years 2010 and 2011 than it had budgeted. Meanwhile, 16 year-olds served by the juvenile system have had higher success rates in alternative programs and lower rearrest rates than youth 15 and younger, disproving concerns that they should be in the adult system.

That’s great and all and everyone involved with this staggering reform must be commended. But.

But as I’ve written before, there are 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 year olds who are still treated as adults. And still subjected to the horrors of the adult criminal system and adult prisons:

Department of Correction data show that youth incarcerated in adult correctional facilities suffer alarming recidivism: 85 percent are re-arrested within two years of release, 62 percent are convicted of new crimes, and 70 percent return to prison on a new charge or parole violation.

Pursuant to C.G.S. 46b-127, any child 14 and older, who is accused of a Class B or A felony is automatically transferred to adult court and treated like an adult. There is no discretion; the legislature, in their “hard on crime”  binges in the 90s, took that power away from the prosecutor and the judge. At the same time, they legislature removed the defendant’s seat at the table. The defense can no longer put on a hearing or ask that the case remain in juvenile court.

Even when the case is in adult court, no one except the prosecutor has the authority to decide to send it back. There’s no oversight and, unlike New Jersey [PDF], our legislature and courts haven’t decided that the decision to treat 14 year olds like adults is important enough to warrant that someone, somewhere state their reasons for doing so on the record. There is absolutely no accountability and the only thing that matters is checking off a box on a list.

So, you say, that’s fine. Even a 14 year old should be held accountable for a serious crime. No doubt. But do you know the punishments Class A and B felonies expose a teenager to? Class B felonies have a 20 year maximum and Class A 25 years, both longer than the life that the teenager would have lived up to that point.

Making matters worse is the mandatory-minimums. There is a lengthy list of crimes for which 14 year old children have to be tried as adults which carry mandatory minimum sentences of 5 or 10 years. And that means no matter how much anyone thinks it’s wrong, the child must get that time in jail. Minimum.

According to the data in this report, in 2010, approximately 170 children were automatically transferred to adult court and kept there and treated as adults. How many of them are now serving long, mandatory prison sentences in adult court? Whose 14 year old is going through absolute hell?

When the Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, it made no distinction between 14, 15, 16 and 17  year olds. Because the Court recognized that they were, after all, children. Why do we insist differently?

Our decisions rested not only on common sense — on what “any parent knows” — but on science and social science as well. Id., at 569, 125 S.Ct. 1183. In Roper, we cited studies showing that “`[o]nly a relatively small proportion of adolescents’” who engage in illegal activity “`develop entrenched patterns of problem behavior.’” Id., at 570, 125 S.Ct. 1183 (quoting Steinberg & Scott, Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence: Developmental Immaturity, Diminished Responsibility, and the Juvenile Death Penalty, 58 Am. Psychologist 1009, 1014 (2003)). And in Graham, we noted that “developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds” — for example, in “parts of the brain involved in behavior control.” 560 U.S., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2026.[5] We reasoned that those findings — 2465*2465 of transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences — both lessened a child’s “moral culpability” and enhanced the prospect that, as the years go by and neurological development occurs, his “`deficiencies will be reformed.’” Id., at ___, 130 S.Ct., at 2027 (quoting Roper, 543 U.S., at 570, 125 S.Ct. 1183).  Roper and Graham emphasized that the distinctive attributes of youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes.

Children are different. Let’s continue to treat them that way.

 

Think of the children

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The classic strawman, the underlying justification for any legislation appearing to be tough on crime, the go-to argument for riling up mobs in your favor is to implore people to, please, think of the children.

The “children” at issue are not just any children: they’re your children and mine, those sweet innocent babes who just want to eat ice cream and roll in the mud and take cute pictures with the family dog. Those naive children whom we must protect at all costs from the dangerous monsters that lurk around the corner and wait in shadows. Unless, of course, these children commit crimes themselves, in which case we do think of them: we think of them as juveniles. One day, they’re the future of the nation, the next they’re shackled in the back of a prison van, drenched in their newly acquired status as irredeemable delinquents, the scourge of society.

Juveniles have long been the forgotten sector of the criminal justice system. Practicing in juvenile court is barely a step above practicing in family court. Representing them is akin to being a social worker and no self-respecting defense lawyer voluntarily wants to go into juvenile court and looks down on those who do. Until now. After the Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama, the plight of juvenile defendants is finally seeing the light of day and taking center stage in a long-overdue discussion about just what, exactly, we are doing to our children. These two cases are notable not only for their respective holdings, but also for mainstreaming the scientific consensus on the development of the adolescent brain.

They’ve caused us to re-examine our treatment of these damaged, troubled 14, 15, 16 and 17 year olds and have shone a spotlight on the ugly legislation we have in our states that mistreats these children. Continue reading →

No semantics when it comes to life

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Life, in America, means different things to different people. Life can start now or 9 months from now. In some states, like CT, life used to mean life, but now it means 60 years. Unless you’re convicted of a capital felony, in which case life means life.

And life is, according to the Supreme Court of the United States, no longer an option for juveniles convicted of non-homicides (and cannot be the only option for juveniles convicted of homicide). That’s all well and simple when the sentence is simply “life” in a legal sense, but what if the sentence is life in a real sense? Are those juveniles somehow different? What if the effect of the sentence is that a juvenile will spend the rest of his natural life behind bars without any meaningful review? What if the sentence is 110 years? Or 220? Isn’t that the same as “life”? Is that juvenile just as condemned to die in prison as the one sentenced to “life”?

According to the California Supreme Court, it is. In a(n?) unanimous decision issued today [PDF], the CA Supreme Court – correctly, in my opinion – vacates the 110-year sentence of a juvenile convicted of a non-homicide crime as a violation of the ban against cruel and unusual punishments.

Relying on the all-too important distinction drawn by SCOTUS in Graham that juveniles are different:

The high court stated that nonhomicide crimes differ from homicide crimes in a “moral sense” and that a juvenile nonhomicide offender has a “twice diminished moral culpability” as opposed to an adult convicted of murder — both because of his crime and because of his undeveloped moral sense.  (Graham, supra, 560 U.S. at p. ___ [130 S.Ct. at p. 2027].)  The court relied on studies showing that “developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence.  [Citations.]  Juveniles are [also] more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of “irretrievably depraved character? than are the actions of adults.”  (Id. at p. ___ [130 S.Ct. at p. 2026],  quoting Roper v. Simmons (2005) 543 U.S. 551, 570.)  No legitimate penological interest, the court concluded, justifies a life without parole sentence for juvenile nonhomicide offenders.  (Id. at p. ___ [130 S.Ct. at p. 2030].)

the CA Supreme Court mandates only that juvenile offenders be given a meaningful opportunity to secure their release, not that their release must be guaranteed. This rationale isn’t limited to parole-ineligible defendants. Indeed, the defendant in today’s opinion is eligible for release on parole, except that the eligibility date won’t come until he’s served 100 years. In other words, never. That’s not a meaningful opportunity.

If one accepts, as the general scientific community does, that the development of the adolescent mind continues until one turns roughly 25, then it is clear to see why this decision and those like it are the right way to proceed. We all change and grow as we age, acquiring new experiences that shape our view of the world and show us the consequences of our actions. We are evolving, in a sense, into hopefully better, more responsible and socially conscious human beings. We aren’t the kids that we were at 16 and we won’t be who we are now when we turn 65. To punish someone of that tender an age and of lesser development for the rest of their lives is cruel. Will the defendant at 50 know the 16 year old who committed the crime? Will he like him? Who are we continuing to punish? I’m not saying that there needs to be a maximum penalty for juveniles that will ensure that they are always released from prison before their death, but rather that society takes another look at these half-cooked humans from time to time to see if they’ve ripened to the point that they can safely be let out again.

And shouldn’t the logic and rationale of Graham and Miller apply not only to mandatory maximums and astronomical sentences but also to mandatory minimums? By applying min-man sentences to juveniles who were 14 or 16 at the time of the commission of their crimes, aren’t we, in essence, doing that very thing which Graham warned against? That mandatory sentences are “particularly harsh for a juvenile offender who will on average serve more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender”? Because what is a mandatory minimum sentence if not a broad brush that refuses to take into account the particular nuances of an individual juvenile? And what of those juveniles that are treated as adults and thus exposed to harsher sentences? Aren’t we drawing arbitrary lines between those who will be treated as adults and those who won’t? Some states set the minimum age for transfer to adult court at 16, many others at 14 and yet others at 13. How is that not cruel?

Yes, these are children who have committed horrible crimes. Yes, these are children who’ve hurt many people. Yes, these are children who deserve some form of punishment and correction. But they’re still children. Isn’t it time we started thinking about the children?

 

Expanding Graham

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In the other criminal justice opinion issued by SCOTUS today, a 6-3 court held in Graham v. Florida that life without parole for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes violates the Constitution’s ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishments.  The decision is a beautiful thing, for sure. Combined with Roper, the Supreme Court has now categorically banned the death penalty for juveniles and LWOP for those juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes.

This, however, has left a gap in the juvenile jurisprudence, one that is sure to be addressed sooner rather than later. What of LWOP for those juveniles who have committed some sort of homicide?

I believe the issue is ripe for pickin’ and there may be enough votes on the Court to hold that such a sentence would violate the Eighth Amendment.

Consider the following quotes. First, the Court sets up the framework under which this claim is to be analyzed:

The present case involves an issue the Court has not considered previously: a categorical challenge to a term-of-years sentence. The approach in cases such as Harmelin and Ewing is suited for considering a gross proportionality challenge to a particular defendant’s sentence, but here a sentencing practice itself is in question. This case implicates a particular type of sentence as it applies to an entire class of offenders who have committed a range of crimes. As a result, a threshold comparison between the severity of the penalty and the gravity of the crime does not advance the analysis. Here, in addressing the question presented, the appropriate analysis is the one used in cases that involved the categorical approach, specifically Atkins, Roper, and Kennedy.

Shunning the case-by-case approach in favor of the “bright line” approach is a trend on the Court and certainly works in favor of those arguing that LWOP for all juveniles is cruel and unusual. Continue reading →

Vengeance at its most shameful

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Jordan Brown, a resident of western Pennsylvania, is charged with shooting Kenzie Marie Houk and her unborn child. Police say that Brown shot her once at point blank range. Today, a judge ruled [thanks to Doc Berman via Gamso] that the prosecution against Brown can remain in his court and denied the defense’s motion for transfer of venue.

Jordan Brown is 12. At the time of the death of Houk, he was 11.

I repeat. Jordan Brown is 12. And a judge ruled that he can be tried as an adult. A state in these United States is about to prosecute an eleven year old as an adult murderer.

Here is a file picture of him, taken from CNN. Look at it. This cherubic 12 year old now faces life in prison. The rest of the post after the photo and the jump.

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