Posted on 11/07/2009 6:29:20 PM PST by presidio9
Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.
Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.
They didn't kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.
Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.
Now the Supreme Court is being asked to say that locking up juveniles and throwing away the key is cruel and unusual — and thus, unconstitutional. Other than in death penalty cases, the justices never before have found that a penalty crossed the cruel-and-unusual line. They will hear arguments Monday.
Graham, now 22, and Sullivan, now 33, are in Florida prisons, which hold more than 70 percent of juvenile defendants locked up for life for nonhomicide crimes. Although their lawyers deny their clients are guilty, the court will consider only whether the sentences are permitted by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court's latest look at how to punish young criminals flows directly from its 4-year-old decision to rule out the death penalty for anyone younger than 18.
In that 2005 case decided by a 5-4 vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion talked about "the lesser culpability of the juvenile offender."
"From a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed,"
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Why are people fixating on the puppy? The puppy is not the point of the quote.
Just for the record - I lost a cousin to rape and murder. At the hands of five people aged 14-22. And for at least the youngest of them, this was something that 'just happened' to them and he did have no idea of the seriousness of what he'd done.
He's now been in prison nineteen years. And his papers are stamped never to be released.
That's not the US - it's an Australian case. But it's left me interested in these issues and following them around the world and including in the US. What happened is hardly unique.
Do I think he deserved to be punished? Yes, I do. For the level of culpability and understanding he had as a fourteen year old who had basically had no effective parenting since he was at least nine, and who had not been involved in any serious crime until he was finally taken in by a group of older people which included hardened criminals.
Because the puppy is the point. People aren’t puppies. Teenagers know right from wrong. They may not have the judgement adults have but they do know.
The point of putting someone in prison is to 1) punish them and 2) keep society safe from them
First let me post a disclaimer..I don't equate humans with animals, but some of our behavior is similar.
I recently read an article that detailed a study about a group of young elephants that were separated from their mothers and their herd. They had no teachers. They became dangerous “rogues”.
So my question is this..Do we isolate the dangerous rogues, even though we have compassion for their circumstances? Or do we allow them to run over society?
What would a good, realistic answer be?
I would say: "From a moral standpoint it would be misguided to in every case release violent predators on their 18th birthdays and put additional innocent people at risk just because in general a possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed. The trial courts should have the discretion to make that decision on a case-by-case basis, and (if the Supreme Court cares) the trial courts do have that authority under the law."
Moreover, if that were truly the case (and you didn't have the opportunity to see the perp's juvenile record - it's sealed) there would be consideration in sentencing.
Parenting or no parenting, a 14 year old knows that killing another human being is wrong. If you deny that, you deny his ability to THINK. In which case a defense of mental retardation would have been interposed.
It's not a perfect system, but the chances of a kid who has had no contact with law enforcement or the juvenile system being tried as an adult and sentenced to life without parole are quite slim. There are just too many gateways and hoops to jump through before you get to that end result.
And of course Heinlein is just getting everybody's juices flowing with his argument (and you went for it). He starts with a completely false premise: that the juvenile system is 'just a slap on the wrist'. People love to claim that, and of course the writer, to achieve his desired effect, knows that. But he is seizing on a popular (and erroneous) idea for his own purposes.
Certainly there are folks who fall through the cracks, juvenile officers who are not vigilant, juvenile judges who are overly lenient, but a quick read of the appeals reports from any state intermediate court will give the lie to the idea that juvenile offenders aren't punished. That system includes a complete range of punishments up to and including imprisonment, and believe me they are imposed.
So your first premise is inaccurate.
As to the question of criminal responsibility, it is true that I was painting with a broad brush and speaking rather generally. You're correct that at common law 7-14 was a fuzzy area. But the point is not that that law is still in force, or even the details of it, but that it has always been recognized that a child may have criminal culpability long before he has the ability to enter into a contract or vote. And the younger end of the scale depends, just at it depends in the modern system, on multiple factors. That's why it was, as you note, a rare case for a child as young as 7 to have full responsibility for a crime imposed upon him. It's rare now, as well.
The other question is one of predictability, and balancing the situation of the juvenile against the danger to the public. Is a child who can commit rape and murder at age 14 capable of being rehabilitated? And are you willing to sit on a parole board that releases that individual, only to have him reoffend?
Let me get this straight:
You are equating the correct decision that a teenager is incapable or unwilling to weigh all of the factors before becoming addicted to cigarettes to the the correct decision that the victim and society come first when determining how a crime should be punished. Did I get that one right?
Forgive me for not Googling your loss. My own best friend was brutally murdered. I was the best man at his wedding, and we both worked at the top of 1 WTC until the summer of 2001, when we moved our office a block and a half south. So I'm familiar with the subject as well. I started a thread on the crime if your interested. The perp is still at large. I'll FReepmail you a keyword if you think you can help.
I'm not sure what the rest of your point is. The beneficiaries of a sentence are society and the victim. Any rehabilitation of the the creep who comitted the crime. I have comitted two crimes in my life one when I was younger, one of a white collar nature. I can promise you that in both cases I thought what I got was unfair. Both were two lenient.
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