Facts and Other Resources
“Three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults demonstrate that juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders. First, as any parent knows, [there is a] comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles… The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure… The third broad difference is that the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult. The personality traits of juveniles are more transitory, less fixed. These differences render suspect any conclusion that a juvenile falls among the worst offenders.”
- Roper v. Simmons Opinion of the Court
Facts and Other Resources
Table of Contents
I. Fact Sheet
II. Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison Equal Justice Initiative, 2008
III. Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation Paolo Annino, et al., 2009
IV. The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States Human Rights Watch, 2005 Summary with link to full report
V. Ghetto Life 101 Chicago Public Radio, 1993
VI. LeAlan Jones of Ghetto Life 101 Grows Up Chicago Public Radio, 2009
Juvenile Life Without Parole: Facts and Figures
1. Age under which children are prohibited from activities including voting, serving on a jury, serving in armed combat, purchasing or using tobacco or alcohol, and marrying or consenting to medical treatment without parental consent: 18 or older
2. States with civil laws recognizing that kids are different in maturity and responsibility: 50
3. Individuals serving life without parole (“LWOP”) for a non-homicide offense committed at age 13: 2
4. Individuals serving LWOP for crimes committed at age 13: 9
5. States with a first-time juvenile offender serving LWOP for armed burglary: 1 (FL)
6. Number of states that account for nearly 90 percent of the juveniles sentenced to LWOP for non-homicide offenses: 3 (FL, LA, IA)
7. States that currently have juvenile offenders incarcerated for life for non-homicide crimes: 6 (FL, LA, IA, CA, NE, SC)
8. Percentage of individuals serving juvenile LWOP for a non-homicide offense who are minorities: 100
9. Estimated number of individuals in the U.S. currently serving LWOP for crimes committed as juveniles: 2,500
10. Individuals in the U.S. currently serving LWOP for non-homicide juvenile crimes: 109
11. Years since a 13-year-old has been sentenced to LWOP for a non-homicide offense: 18
12. 13- and 14-year-olds sentenced to LWOP over the last approximately 30 years: 73
13. Number of child offenders serving life without parole outside of the United States: 0
14. Nations opposing the 2006 UN General Assembly Resolution calling on all nations to abolish juvenile LWOP: 1 (United States)
15. Nations that have not ratified Article 37 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, prohibiting juvenile LWOP sentences: 2 (United States and Somalia)
Sourcing by line: 1: Roper v. Simmons Opinion of the Court; ABA Juvenile Justice Center 2,4,11,12: Sullivan petitioner brief 3,8: Equal Justice Initiative, Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison 5,7: Graham petitioner brief 6,10: Paolo Annino, et al., Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation “The susceptibility of juveniles to immature and irresponsible behavior means ‘their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.’ Their own vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate Cruel and Unusual: surroundings mean juveniles have a greater claim Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old than adults to be forgiven for failing to escape Children to Die in Prison negative influences in their whole environment...
From a moral standpoint it would be misguided Equal Justice Initiative 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.”
U.S. Supreme Court, Roper v. Simmons (2005) Photo by Steve Liss Photo by Steve Liss
Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing 13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison
Equal Justice Initiative
The Equal Justice Initiative is a non-profit law organization with offices in Montgomery, Alabama and New York City. For more information about this report or EJI, please contact:
Equal Justice Initiative 122 Commerce Street Montgomery, Alabama 36104 (334) 269-1803 www.eji.org
January 2008 Photo by John Earle John Photo by
© 2007 by the Equal Justice Initiative. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission in writing from the Equal Justice Initiative. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary...... 3
Introduction...... 4
Young Children Are Different: Developmental and Legal Distinctions Between Adolescents and Older Teens and Adults...... 7
Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Why Sentencing Children to Death in Prison Violates the Constitution...... 11
The Global Consensus: Condemning Children to Die in Prison Violates International Law...... 13
Children in Adult Prisons: Targets for Sexual and Physical Assault...... 14
Victimizing the Most Vulnerable: Condemned Children Share Childhoods of Neglect and Abuse...... 15
The Data: Numbers and Demographics of Young Children Sentenced to Death . in Prison ...... 20
Race: Children of Color Are Disproportionately Sentenced to Die in Prison...... 21
Poverty: Children from Poor Families Are Unable to Get Legal Help...... 22
Non-Homicides: Children Sentenced to Death in Prison for Crimes Without Fatalities...... 24
The Children: Profiles of Children Condemned to Die in Prison...... 25
Conclusion...... 33
Notes...... 34
Acknowledgment...... 37
1 Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by
2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the United States, dozens of 13- and 14-year-old children have been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole after being prosecuted as adults. While the United States Supreme Court recently declared in Roper v. Simmons that death by execution is unconstitutional for juveniles, young children continue to be sentenced to imprisonment until death with very little scrutiny or review. A study by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has documented 73 cases where children 13 and 14 years of age have been condemned to death in prison. Almost all of these kids currently lack legal representation and in most of these cases the propriety and constitutionality of their extreme sentences have never been reviewed.
Most of the sentences imposed on these children were mandatory: the court could not give any consideration to the child’s age or life history. Some of the children were charged with crimes that do not involve homicide or even injury; many were convicted for offenses where older teenagers or adults were involved and primarily responsible for the crime; nearly two-thirds are children of color.
Over 2225 juveniles (age 17 or younger) in the United States have been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. All of these cases raise important legal, penological, and moral issues. However, EJI believes that such a harsh sentence for the youngest offenders – children who are 13 and 14 – is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. These children should be re-sentenced to parole-eligible sentences as soon as possible. Sentences of life imprisonment with no parole also violate international law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia.
EJI has launched a litigation campaign to challenge death in prison sentences imposed on young children. This report is intended to illuminate this cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on children, particularly for those who have been without legal help for so long that the procedural obstacles to winning relief in court will be formidable. Increased public awareness, coupled with informed activity by advocacy groups, will be necessary to reform policies that reflect a lack of perspective and hope for young children.
Bryan A. Stevenson Executive Director
3 INTRODUCTION
In the United States, 13- and 14-year-old children are sentenced to die in prison. Kids too young to drive a car or go to a scary movie by themselves are sentenced to imprisonment until they die, with absolutely no chance of parole or release. In many states, 13- and 14-year-olds are subjected to the harshest possible prison sentence despite widespread acknowledgment by experts, parents, teachers, doctors, and courts that children tend to be incapable of making mature choices, that they are vulnerable to negative influences and peer pressure, and that they are powerless to protect themselves from dysfunctional and dangerous home environments.
In most of these cases, the judges who imposed death in prison sentences on young children had no other legal option. The majority of these children were condemned to die in prison by mandatory sentencing laws that preclude the sentencer from considering the child’s age, maturity, or capacity for change.
Some young children have been involved in tragic, horribly misguided violence and dangerous behavior, and they clearly need intervention and correction. However, imposing death in prison sentences on young children is an irresponsible, thoughtless, and uninformed response to kids in crisis. Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by
4 Imprisoning a child for the rest of his life violates standards of decency in this country, particularly in light of what we know about the unique vulnerability of young adolescents and about a child’s capacity for growth, change, and redemption. These extreme punishments for children violate international standards which require protection and special consideration for children because they have not fully developed physically, mentally, or emotionally. Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by
Nationwide, at least 2225 people are serving sentences of death in prison for crimes they committed under the age of 18. Death in prison sentences are imposed on juveniles in the United States at a rate at least three times higher today than 15 years ago.1 The proportion of juveniles convicted of serious crimes who are sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole is increasing as states punish these young offenders more severely.
Most critically, dozens of children condemned to die in prisons across the United States were 13 or 14 at the time of the offense. The youngest of these kids facing death in prison share characteristics – distinct from older teens – that highlight the impropriety of imprisoning children until they die.
5 Photo by Gigi Cohen
Joseph Jones
Joseph Jones is imprisoned in North Carolina, where he was condemned to life imprisonment without parole for an offense committed at age 13.
6 Young Children Are Different
Developmental and Legal Distinctions Between Adolescents and Older Teens and Adults
Unlike older teenagers, 14-year-olds in most states cannot get married without permission or obtain a driver’s license. The law mandates that they must attend school and limits the hours they can work in after-school jobs.
The law treats young adolescents differently because they are different. Using state-of-the-art imaging technology, scientists have revealed that adolescents’ brains are anatomically undeveloped in parts of the cerebrum associated with impulse control, regulation of emotions, risk assessment, and moral reasoning. Accordingly, the neurological development most critical to making good judgments, moral and ethical decision-making, and controlling impulsive behavior is incomplete during adolescence.2
As a result, young teens experience widely fluctuating emotions and vulnerability to stress and peer pressure without the adult ability to resist impulses and risk-taking behavior or the adult capacity to control their emotions.3 At the same time, because a child’s character is not yet fully formed, he will change and reform as he grows up.4 Photos by John Earle John Photos by 7 Quantel Lotts was condemned to die in a Missouri prison after a tragic incident that occurred when he was 14. Quantel was always taught that problems were solved by fighting it out. In his family, if the kids misbehaved, the adults made them box each other. When an argument over a toy ended in the death of his stepbrother, Quantel was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in prison, despite pleas from his stepmother that he have a chance for parole.
While the differences between children and adults are “marked and well understood,”5 children as young as 13 have found themselves in the adult criminal justice system and subject to its most severe penalties. Because of their low social status in relation to adult interrogators, beliefs about the need to obey authority, greater dependence on adults, and vulnerability to intimidation, juveniles are uniquely susceptible to coercive psychological interrogation techniques designed for adults, leading to false confessions6 and undermining the reliability of the fact-finding process.7 Together with their diminished understanding of rights, confusion about trial processes, limited language skills, and inadequate decision-making abilities, young children are at great risk in the adult criminal justice system.
T.J. Tremble was 14 when officers took him to the police station at 2:30 a.m. They searched him, took his clothes, put a jail uniform on him, and handcuffed him behind his back for six hours. He was not allowed to eat, sleep, use the bathroom, or see his parents. He asked for a lawyer but none was provided. T.J. ended up giving a statement so he could see his parents and stop his interrogators from harassing him. Prosecutors used that statement to convict T.J. and he was sentenced to die in a Michigan prison.
8 The Supreme Court recently acknowledged the differences between juvenile and adult offenders and concluded that children have “insufficient culpability” to merit the most severe punishment:
“[J]uvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.”8 Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by 9 Photo by Glenn Paul
Joe Sullivan
JOE SULLIVAN has spent 18 years in prison in Florida, where he was sentenced to imprisonment until death for a non-homicide that occurred when he was just 13 years old. He is mentally disabled and, while in prison, has developed serious medical problems that require him to use a wheelchair.
10 Cruel and Unusual Punishment
Why Sentencing Children to Death in Prison Violates the Constitution
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual A sentence of imprisonment punishments.” To determine which punishments until death is a different and are cruel and unusual, courts look to “the harsher punishment when evolving standards of decency that mark the inflicted on a young child. progress of a maturing society.”9 The analysis includes measuring the blameworthiness of children against the harshness of the penalty and looking at how frequently the penalty is imposed.10
A sentence of imprisonment until death is a different and harsher punishment when inflicted on a young child.11 In striking down a life without parole sentence imposed on a 13-year-old, the Nevada Supreme Court characterized it as a “denial of hope” and said that “it means that good behavior and character improvement are immaterial; it means that whatever the future might hold in store for the mind and spirit of [the defendant], he will remain in prison for the rest of his days.”12
The United States Supreme Court has held:
When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.13
A sentence to die in prison – whether by execution or other means – extinguishes that potential and offends the Constitution.
EJI contacted the department of corrections in every state, reviewed all published decisions and news articles available in electronic databases, and consulted with juvenile justice scholars and practitioners around the country. This research uncovered children 14 years old or younger who were sentenced to die in prison in 19 states.
11 EJI has identified 73 cases nationwide in which a sentence of life without parole has been imposed on a child who was 13 or 14 years old at the time of the offense. Those cases represent just a tiny fraction of cases in which kids 14 or under have been arrested for homicide.14 A small handful of these young children have been sentenced to die in prison for non-homicide offenses.
Photo by Glenn Paul
Ian Manuel
IAN MANUEL was sentenced to die in prison for a non-homicide that occurred when he was 13. When he arrived at prison processing in Central Florida, he was so small that no prison uniform fit him. “He was scared of everything and acting like a tough guy as a defense mechanism,” said Ron McAndrew, then the assistant warden. “He didn’t stand a chance in an adult prison.” Within months, Ian was sent to one of the toughest adult prisons in the state, where minor nonviolent infractions landed him in solitary confinement. Now 29, he has spent half his life in a closet-size concrete box, getting his food through a slot in the door, never seeing another inmate, not allowed to read anything but legal and religious materials, so bored that he cuts himself with fragments of a toothpaste tube or a tiny piece of glass. In the past year, he has attempted suicide five times.15
12 The Global Consensus
Condemning Children to Die in Prison Violates International Law
International law prohibits sentencing children to death in prison. The United States is the only country in the world where a 13-year-old is known to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country except the United States and Somalia, forbids this practice16 and at least 132 countries have rejected the sentence altogether.17
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States became a party in 1992, prohibits life without parole sentencing for juveniles.18 The official implementation body for the Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment recently commented that life imprisonment for children “could constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” in violation of the Convention.19 Further, the United Nations General Assembly passed by a 185-1 vote (the United States voted against) a resolution calling upon all nations to “abolish by law, as soon as possible, the death penalty and life imprisonment without possibility for release for those under the age of 18 years at the time of the commission of the offence.”20 Photos by John Earle John Photos by
13 Children in Adult Prisons
Targets for Sexual and Physical Assault
Juveniles placed in adult prisons are at heightened risk of physical and sexual assault by older, more mature prisoners. Many adolescents suffer horrific abuse for years when sentenced to die in prison.21 Young inmates are at particular risk of rape in prison. Children sentenced to adult prisons typically are victimized because they have “no prison experience, friends, companions or social support.”22 Children are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted in adult prisons than in juvenile facilities.23 Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by
14 EJI attorneys interviewed one Alabama inmate who is serving a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for an offense that occurred when he was 15. Since being incarcerated in an adult prison, this boy has been repeatedly raped. He was forced to prostitute himself in exchange for protection from physical beatings and sexual assault by other inmates. His ‘protectors’ forced him to have their names tattooed on his body to signify their ownership of him. Prison guards target him for beatings and harassment because of the sexual relationships into which he has been forced. His nickname, “Brown Sugar,” is one of the prison tattoos that brand Photo by Steve Liss him as a victim of repeated and ongoing sexual abuse.
This boy’s story is not unusual. One of our clients attempted suicide three times after being repeatedly raped by older inmates. After his third suicide attempt, he was moved to another prison. While children in adult prisons often are reluctant to talk about the sexual assaults they have experienced, many EJI clients have been victims of prison rape, sexual assault, and physical violence and abuse while incarcerated.
Victimizing the Most Vulnerable
Condemned Children Share Childhoods of Neglect and Abuse
Most of the children who have been sentenced to die in prison for crimes at 13 or 14 come from violent and dysfunctional backgrounds. They have been physically and sexually abused, neglected, and abandoned; their parents are prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, and crack dealers; they grew up in lethally violent, extremely poor areas where health and safety were luxuries their families could not afford.
15 “[Y]outh is more than a chronological fact . . . It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage.”24 During 2005, approximately 899,000 children in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect. More than 60% of victims suffered neglect, 15% suffered physical abuse, 10% suffered sexual abuse, and 7% were victims of emotional maltreatment. An estimated 1460 children died due to child abuse or neglect in 2005 – a rate of 1.96 deaths per 100,000 children. More than 40% of child fatalities were attributed to neglect, while physical abuse also was a major contributor to child deaths. Nearly 80% of perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents, and another 6.8% were other relatives of the child victim.25
Children sentenced to die in prison have in common the disturbing failure of police, family courts, child protection Ashley Jones, 14, after being sentenced to die in prison in Alabama. agencies, foster systems, and Copyright, The Birmingham News, 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. health care providers to treat and protect them. Their crimes occur in the midst of crisis, often resulting from desperate, misguided attempts to protect themselves.
The experiences of EJI’s clients exemplify the extremely deprived and difficult backgrounds of children sentenced to die in prison. Many of these children have been victimized by physical violence and sexual abuse inflicted on them by their parents and other family members. Several of these children endured years of sexual abuse and rape: one was repeatedly sexually assaulted beginning when he was just four years old; another boy was raped by a family member.
Ashley Jones was repeatedly threatened at gunpoint by her parents, sexually assaulted by her stepfather, forced into crack houses by an addicted mother, physically abused by family members, and abducted by a gang shortly before her crime.
16 Severe neglect is also common among children in this group. Joseph Jones grew up in Newark public housing, where his crack-addicted parents left him to cook, clean, and take care of his six younger siblings. At 13, Joseph’s parents took him to North Carolina and abandoned him with relatives.
Quantel Lotts saw his uncle gunned down in his front yard in a poor St. Louis neighborhood, where his mother used and sold crack cocaine out of their house. Quantel was removed from his mother’s custody at age eight; he smelled of urine, his teeth were rotting, and his legs, arms, and head bore scars from being punched and beaten with curtain rods and broom handles.
Fatal violence is all too common in the impoverished areas where many of these kids spent their childhoods. Antonio Nuñez lived with his family in a brutally violent South Central Los Angeles neighborhood. When he was 13, he was shot while riding a bicycle just down the street from his house. His 14-year-old brother responded to Antonio’s cries for help and was shot in the head and killed. Antonio would have died but for emergency surgery to repair his intestines.
Omer Ninham has been sentenced to imprisonment in a Wisconsin prison until death for a crime that occurred when he was 14.
These adolescents suffer from drug and alcohol dependence that typically began in the womb and can be traced back through their family trees. Omer Ninham is the child of alcoholic parents and, by age ten, was drinking alcohol daily – even in the classroom, where his teachers looked the other way. Omer got his first toothbrush at age 14, when he was removed from his parents and sent to a youth home.
17 Tragically, these children received no effective or long-term services, even where their cries for help were early, frequent, and unmistakable. Evan Miller suffered physical and emotional abuse so severe that he tried to kill himself when he was just seven years old. By age eight, he had attempted suicide several times.
Research has shown that juveniles subjected to trauma, abuse, and neglect suffer from cognitive underdevelopment, lack of maturity, decreased ability to restrain impulses, and susceptibility to outside influences greater even than those suffered by normal teenagers.26
Normal adolescents cannot be expected to transcend their own psychological or biological capacities in order to operate with the level of maturity, judgment, risk aversion, or impulse control of an adult. A 14-year-old who has suffered brain trauma, a dysfunctional family life, violence, or abuse cannot be presumed to function even at standard levels for adolescents.
Children overwhelmed by dysfunction and without resources to flee or seek help are not provided treatment or safe haven. Instead, in the adult criminal justice system, they are subjected to mandatory sentencing that ignores the child’s circumstances and those of the offense in imposing the harshest available sentence.
Evan Miller was condemned to die in an Alabama prison for an offense when he was 14 years old.
18 Dominic Culpepper
The State of Florida condemned DOMINIC CULPEPPER to death in prison for a crime that occurred when he was 14.
19 The Data
Numbers and Demographics of Young Children Sentenced to Death in Prison
EJI conducted a nationwide investigation to determine how many people in the United States are serving sentences of life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14 years old. By reviewing court decisions, searching media reports, and collecting information from state departments of corrections and from prisoners directly, we have identified 73 people who are serving sentences to die in prison for crimes they committed at age 13 or 14. States that have sentenced 13- or 14-year-olds to die in prison These 73 children sentenced to death in prison are serving their sentences in just 19 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Number of Children Sentenced to Die in Prison Pennsylvania is 0 5 10 15 20 25 the worst state in Alabama Arkansas the country when it Arizona comes to sentencing Calif ornia Colorado 13- and 14-year- Delaw are Florida old children to Illinois Iowa die in prison. Of Michigan Mis s o ur i the 73 children Mississippi sentenced to die in Nebraska North Carolina prison nationwide, Pennsylvania South Dakota 18 were sentenced Tennessee Washington by Pennsylvania. Wisconsin
Florida is second, 13- and 14-Year-Olds Sentenced to Die in Prison with 15 young children sentenced to die in prison. By In State six states – Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington – 13-year-old children have been condemned to death in prison. 20 Race
Children of Color Are Disproportionately Sentenced to Die in Prison
Of the 73 children we identified, nearly half (36, or 49%) are African American. Seven (9.6%) are Latino. Twenty-two (30%) are white. One is Native American; one is Asian American.
All of the children condemned to death in prison for non-homicide offenses are children of color. All but one of the children sentenced to life without parole for offenses committed at age 13 are children of color.
In cases involving children sentenced to die in
Photo by John Earle John Photo by prison, race, vulnerability, and family dysfunction are predominant factors. Of the 15 cases EJI has investigated in connection with its litigation campaign for young children, 12 are children of color. In nine of these cases, the victim is white. Two cases involve intra-family offenses; three are non-homicide offenses. Three of these children were 13 years old at the time of the offense. All but five death in prison sentences were mandatory.
Race of Children Condemned to Die in Prison
21 Poverty
Children from Poor Families Are Unable to Get Legal Help
Most of our clients are from poor families and did not receive adequate legal assistance to challenge their convictions and sentences. Most had no lawyer when EJI contacted them. Many had never filed postconviction appeals.
In many of these cases, appointed trial and appellate lawyers failed to challenge the death in prison sentences imposed on their adolescent clients, or worse, filed briefs stating that they could find no issue in the case worth challenging on appeal. Indeed, when contacted by EJI, a number of these lawyers did not realize or remember that Photo by Jacob Holdt Jacob Photo by their clients were just 13 or 14 at the time of the offense.
Ian Manuel’s appointed trial lawyer persuaded him to plead guilty and told him he would receive a 15-year sentence. Ian pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole. His lawyer never appealed or withdrew the plea.
Phillip Shaw’s appointed trial lawyer failed to object to the prosecution’s discriminatory exclusion of women from his jury. As a result of the lawyer’s failure to object, the appellate court refused to review the claim on appeal. Phillip was tried in a joint trial with his older co-defendant. The co-defendant’s lawyer objected to the illegal exclusion of jurors, and the co-defendant won a new trial on appeal. (He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to ten years, and is now out of prison.)
Joe Sullivan’s trial lawyer has been suspended from the practice of law after being convicted of felony assault.
These examples illustrate that kids who cannot afford competent counsel face a dramatically escalated risk of being sentenced to die in prison and of losing any chance to challenge their convictions or sentences.
22 Photo by Gigi Cohen
Ken-Tay Lee
Ken-Tay Lee was sentenced to die in a North Carolina prison for a crime com- mitted at age 14.
23 Non-Homicides
Children Sentenced to Death in Prison for Crimes Without Fatalities
Of the 73 children sentenced to die in prison, six were sentenced to die in prison for crimes in which no one was killed. All of these kids are children of color.
Only two people in the nation are known to have been sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide offense at age 13. One is Joe Sullivan, who was blamed by an older co-defendant for a sexual battery that was allegedly committed when they broke into a home together. No physical evidence (like DNA) proved that Joe, and not the older teen, committed this offense.
The second is Ian Manuel, who was 13 years old when he was directed by gang members to commit a robbery. During the botched robbery attempt, the subject of the robbery suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound and a remorseful Ian turned himself in to the police. Although the victim of the robbery supports parole for Ian, he remains condemned to die in prison.
In one of these non- homicide cases, a 14-year- old was sentenced to die in prison in California for an offense in which no one was injured. Fourteen-year- old Antonio Nuñez got into a car with two men nearly twice his age who picked him up at a party. One of
the men later claimed to Photo by Glenn Paul be a kidnap victim. When their car was chased by the police and shots were fired, Antonio was arrested and charged, along with the 27-year-old driver, with Joe Sullivan aggravated kidnapping.
24 The Children
Profiles of Children Condemned to Die in Prison
EJI has filed legal challenges on behalf of 13- and 14-year-old children sentenced to die in prison in eight states. Our clients’ stories illustrate what all children sentenced to death in prison have in common: lack of competent legal help, offenses characterized by an inability to make mature judgments, impulsiveness, and the influence of older people, and brutal and traumatic childhood experiences.
Ashley Jones – Alabama
Ashley Jones is the only girl in Alabama sentenced to death in prison for an offense when she was 14 years old. From the time she was an infant, Ashley was terrorized by abusive and violent adults. Her addicted mother abandoned Ashley in crack houses while she was still in diapers and on several occasions threatened her at gunpoint. Her father assaulted her, resulting in a hospitalization. Her stepfather sexually assaulted her when she was 11. Relentless violence in her home left Ashley depressed, traumatized, and suicidal. At 14, Ashley tried to escape the violence and abuse by running away with an older boyfriend who shot and killed her grandfather and aunt. Her grandmother and sister, who were injured during the offense, want Ashley to come home. But Alabama’s mandatory sentencing law does not recognize mitigation, mercy, or the abusive dysfunction that lead to her crime. Instead, it condemns Ashley to die in prison despite the fact that today, at 22, she has matured into a remarkable young woman who is incredibly bright and promising.
Ashley Jones, 14, after being sentenced to die in prison in Alabama. Copyright, The Birmingham News, 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
25 Evan Miller – Alabama
From the time Evan Miller was a toddler, his father severely beat him whenever he got angry. Because of this abuse, Evan tried to hang himself with a belt when he was seven. His impoverished family lived in neighborhoods where Evan was exposed to alcohol, drugs, and violence. His parents used drugs and drank heavily. At age ten, Evan was removed from his home and placed in foster care for two years. When he was returned to his mother, he returned to a life of poverty and neglect. Evan began using drugs and alcohol and was hospitalized twice for depression and anger management. On the night of the crime, a middle-aged man gave Evan and an older boy drugs and alcohol. The two intoxicated kids got into a physical altercation with the older man, who was hit with a baseball bat and his trailer set on fire. Evan was sentenced to die in prison without any consideration of his age or the abuse and neglect he suffered throughout his short life.
Kuntrell Jackson – Arkansas
At 14, Kuntrell Jackson was arrested and accused of robbery-murder in a video store robbery and shooting that the prosecution acknowledges was carried out by someone else. Kuntrell was with several other teens when the crime allegedly was committed. Before Kuntrell entered the store, another teen shot and killed the clerk. The State of Arkansas sentenced 14-year-old Kuntrell to die in prison despite its concession that he did not kill the clerk. Kuntrell’s life at home had been seriously disrupted when his father abandoned the family three years prior to this incident. Kuntrell’s time in jail as a young child has been horrific. He attempted to escape on two occasions and now is confined in a maximum security prison.
26 Antonio Nuñez – California
The month after his 13th birthday, Antonio Nuñez was riding a bicycle near his home in South Central L.A. when he was shot multiple times. His brother, just 14 years old, ran to help him and was shot in the head and killed. Antonio left his neighborhood to escape the violence that claimed his brother’s life, but a probation officer threatened his mother if he did not return to South Central. Antonio returned to L.A. with his family and, two Antonio Nuñez with his aunt (center) and weeks later, got into a car with two men nearly grandmother. twice his age who picked him up at a party. One of the men later claimed to be a kidnap victim. When their car was chased by the police and shots were fired, Antonio was arrested and charged, along with the 27-year-old driver, with aggravated kidnaping. No one was injured, but 14-year-old Antonio was sentenced to die in prison. He is the only child in the country known to be serving a death in prison sentence for his involvement, at age 14, in a single incident where no one was injured.
Dominic Culpepper – Florida
Dominic Culpepper suffered constant emotional and physical abuse from his mother, who beat him severely and told him she wished he was dead. Dominic’s parents divorced and his father moved out, leaving him with his unstable and violent mother. Dominic was befriended by older men in the neighborhood who used him to deal drugs for them. When he was 14, a drug dealer who had threatened and stolen from Dominic came into his home. Dominic attacked him with a baseball bat. Afraid and confused, 14-year-old Dominic moved the injured drug dealer out of the house and contacted emergency services. Emergency services personnel were unable to save the young man’s life and Dominic was arrested for murder. Although Dominic was only 14 and had used the bat against an intruder in his own home, the State of Florida sentenced him to die in prison.
27 Ian Manuel – Florida
Ian Manuel was raised in gruesome violence and extreme poverty. At age four, Ian was raped by a sibling. Violence and despair defined Ian’s childhood and neighborhood and he was quickly pushed into destructive gang violence. When Ian was 13, he was directed by gang members to commit a robbery. During the botched robbery attempt, a woman suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound and a remorseful Ian turned himself in to the police. Ian’s attorney instructed him to plead guilty and told him he would receive a 15-year sentence. Ian, accepting responsibility for his actions, pleaded guilty but was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Ian’s lawyer never appealed or withdrew the plea. In prison, Ian has spent years in solitary confinement and repeatedly attempted suicide. The victim has forgiven Ian and petitioned for his release but the State of Florida demands that Ian remain in prison from the age of 13 until he is dead. Photo by Glenn Paul Photo by
28 Joe Sullivan – Florida
Joe Sullivan is one of only two people in the nation known to have been sentenced to die in prison for a non-homicide offense at age 13. A severely mentally disabled boy, Joe was blamed by an older co-defendant for a sexual battery that was allegedly committed when they broke into a home together. Despite Joe’s young age and disabilities, his father dropped him off at police headquarters to face questioning alone after hearing about the
allegations. At trial, Joe was represented by an Photo by Glenn Paul attorney who has since been suspended from the practice of law. Joe, who continues to assert his innocence, is 31 and confined to a wheelchair.
T.J. Tremble – Michigan
T.J. Tremble was arrested just four months after Michigan enacted harsh new laws permitting 14-year-old children to be tried as adults. As police held and interrogated him overnight, they refused to permit his worried parents to see him and denied requests for an attorney. T.J. was convicted of first-degree murder and automatically sentenced to death in prison with no consideration of his age or background. He was sent to Baldwin Correctional Facility, a privately-run maximum security prison that closed after a federal lawsuit alleged that youths in the prison were illegally subjected to extreme isolation and forced to spend weeks in small concrete cells. T.J., who has been moved to another prison located hours from home, sends the money that he earns at his prison job to his ailing parents. He is one of only two 14-year-old kids in Michigan sentenced to die in prison.
29 Quantel Lotts – Missouri
Quantel Lotts spent the first seven years of his life in a turbulent, violent St. Louis neighborhood. His mother sold and used crack in their house. He saw his uncle shot by drug dealers in his front yard. Quantel, who is African American, was removed from his mother’s home and lived in three different foster homes before moving with his father to rural, predominately white St. Francois County. Quantel’s father moved his three children into the home of a white woman, with whom he developed a Photo by Sean Gallagher relationship, and her children from a prior marriage. The step-siblings became very close. Quantel loved his stepbrother Michael and spent a lot of time with him. On the day of the crime, however, the two boys got into an argument. Michael was stabbed with a knife and died. Despite objections from the victim’s mother, Quantel was tried and convicted as an adult. Without any consideration of his age, psychological state, or family background, and against Michael’s mother’s wishes, Quantel was sentenced to die in prison.
Phillip Shaw – Missouri
Phillip Shaw was sentenced to die in prison for a robbery-shooting that took place when he was 14 years old. Phillip was with a group of older boys in an abandoned building when one of them was shot by two masked gunmen. Phillip immediately ran home and called the police. The police came and arrested Phillip for the shooting, along with a 21-year-old man. On appeal, Phillip’s older co-defendant won a new trial because women were illegally excluded from the jury that convicted him and Phillip. Phillip’s attorney failed to object and his conviction was affirmed. At the co-defendant’s retrial, the co-defendant got a reduced sentence and now has been released from prison. Phillip, who has matured into a thoughtful young man, remains condemned to die in prison. Photo by Sean Gallagher Photo by
30 Joseph Jones – North Carolina
Joseph Jones is one of eight 13-year- olds nationwide sentenced to die in prison. Growing up in Newark public housing, Joseph raised his six younger siblings practically by himself. His crack-addicted Photo by Gigi Cohen parents left the children alone for days on end, leaving Joseph to cook, clean, and make sure his brothers and sisters went to school. He always did well at school and often made the honor roll. When he was 13, Joseph’s parents took him and his brother to North Carolina and left them there with Joseph’s aunt and 16-year-old uncle. One afternoon, while 13-year-old Joseph, who is black, was riding his bike, his uncle and an 18-year-old friend told him to invite home a white girl they knew from the neighborhood. Thinking nothing of it, Joseph complied. When the older teens began beating and sexually assaulting the girl, Joseph turned to run. His older and bigger uncle forced him to participate. After Joseph left, the girl was killed by the older teens, who threatened Joseph not to tell anyone. Despite the glaring conflict of interest, Joseph’s aunt acted as his ‘guardian’ during his 12-hour-long interrogation. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in prison.
Ken-Tay Lee – North Carolina
Ken-Tay Lee grew up in a poor neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother held down numerous jobs to maintain the home for Ken-Tay and his brother. With his mother at work and absent from the home, Ken-Tay fell in with the wrong crowd. He smoked marijuana on a daily basis and spent days breaking into cars. Ken- Tay was 14 years old when he and an older teenager were invited to a New Year’s Eve party by a 30-year- old man. After being served numerous drinks, smoking marijuana, and after aggressive maneuvers by the older man, Ken-Tay and the older teenager responded violently and fatally injured the man. Despite his older co-defendant receiving a parole date of 2017 for his part in the man’s death, Ken-Tay was sentenced to die Photo by Gigi Cohen Photo by in prison.
31 Omer Ninham – Wisconsin
Omer Ninham is the only 14-year-old sentenced to die in prison in Wisconsin. His mother drank heavily while pregnant with him and Omer was drinking alcohol daily from the time he was ten. His parents, both violent alcoholics, allowed Omer’s older brothers to beat him routinely. The police were a regular presence at the family’s numerous addresses. By the time Omer was 13 he had run away too many times to count. Omer struggled in school, but did well when he spent a short time on a reservation with a program for Native American children. One evening Omer and a group of five friends began picking on a kid from school and it quickly escalated to tragic violence and the young man was killed. Despite the powerful evidence of Omer’s dysfunctional and abusive childhood, the judge sentenced him to die in prison.
32 CONCLUSION
Many young children in America are imperiled by abuse, neglect, domestic and community violence, and poverty. Without effective intervention and help, these children suffer, struggle, and fall into despair and hopelessness. Some young teens cannot manage the emotional, social, and psychological challenges of adolescence and eventually engage in destructive and violent behavior. Sadly, many states have ignored the crisis and dysfunction that creates child delinquency and instead have subjected kids to further victimization and abuse in the adult criminal justice system.
The imposition of life imprisonment without parole sentences on the 13- and 14-year-olds documented in this report reveals the misguided consequences of thoughtlessly surrendering children to the adult criminal justice system. Condemning young children to die in prison is cruel and incompatible with fundamental standards of decency that require protection for children. These sentences undermine the efforts of parents, teachers, lawyers, activists, legislators, policymakers, judges, child advocates, clergy, students, and ordinary citizens to ensure the well-being of young children in our society and they feed the despair and violence that traumatizes too many of our communities and young people. The denial of all hope to a child whose brain - much less his character or personality - is not yet developed cannot be reconciled with society’s commitment to help, guide, and nurture our children.
Life imprisonment without parole for young children should be abolished. States that impose death in prison sentences on young children should immediately eliminate the practice and provide opportunities for parole to people who are currently sentenced to imprisonment until death for crimes committed at 13 or 14. Recent legal developments, international law, and medical insights on child development provide powerful support for ending life without parole sentences for young children. There is an urgent need to change current criminal justice policy and institute reforms that protect young children from death in prison sentences. The plight of the condemned children in this report is not disconnected from the fate of all children, who frequently need correction, guidance, and direction, but always need hope.
33 NOTES
1. Amnesty Int’l & Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States (2005), at http://hrw.org/reports/2005/ us1005/. 2. Jay N. Giedd, Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain, 1021 Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 77-85 (2004); Nitin Gogtay et al., Dynamic Mapping of Human Cortical Development During Childhood Through Early Adulthood, 101 Proceedings Nat’l Acad. Sci. 8174 (2004); Elizabeth R. Sowell et al., Mapping Cortical Change Across the Human Life Span, 6 Nature Neuroscience 309 (2003). 3. L.P. Spear, The Adolescent Brain and Age-Related Behavioral Manifestations, 24 Neuroscience & Biobehav. Revs. 417, 421 (2000); Elizabeth Cauffman & Laurence Steinberg, (Im)Maturity of Judgment in Adolescence: Why Adolescents May Be Less Culpable Than Adults, 18 Behav. Sci. & L. 741,742 (2000); Lita Furby & Ruth Beyth-Marom, Risk Taking in Adolescence: A Decision-Making Perspective, 12 Developmental Rev. 1, 9-11 (1992). 4. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 570 (2005) (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.”). 5. Id. at 572-73. 6. Steven A. Drizin & Richard A. Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post- DNA World, 82 N.C. L. Rev. 891, 1005 (2004). 7. Gerald D. Robin, Juvenile Interrogation and Confessions, 10 J. Police Sci. & Admin. 224, 225 (1982); Barbara Kaban & Ann E. Tobey, When Police Question Children: Are Protections Adequate?, 1 J. Center Child. & Cts. 151, 158 (1999) (“Interrogation procedures designed for adults but used with children increase the likelihood of false confessions and may even undermine the integrity of the fact-finding process.”). 8. Roper, 543 U.S. at 569. 9. Roper, 543 U.S. at 561 (quoting Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 100-101 (1958) (plurality opinion)). 10. In Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), the Court struck down Georgia’s statute “under which the death penalty was ‘infrequently imposed’ upon ‘a capriciously selected random handful.’” Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 438 (1980) (Marshall, J., concurring) (citing Furman, 408 U.S. at 309-10 (Stewart, J.,
34 concurring)); see also id. at 439 n.9 (noting that, in Furman, Justices Stewart and White “concurred in the judgment largely on the ground that the death penalty had been so infrequently imposed that it made no contribution to the goals of punishment.”). In Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584, 596-97 (1977), the Court looked to the rarity of death sentences for rape of an adult woman in concluding that the death penalty is an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment for that crime. Likewise, in Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988), a plurality of the Court determined that contemporary standards of decency did not permit the execution of offenders under the age of 16 at the time of the crime, noting that the death penalty was imposed on offenders under 16 with exceeding rarity. Id. at 832-33. When Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002), was decided, only a minority of states permitted the execution of persons with mental retardation, “and even in those States it was rare. On the basis of these indicia the Court determined that executing mentally retarded offenders ‘has become truly unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it.’” Roper, 543 U.S. at 563 (citations omitted); see also id. at 564 (“Atkins emphasized that even in the 20 States without formal prohibition, the practice of executing the mentally retarded was infrequent. Since Penry, only five States had executed offenders known to have an IQ under 70.”). 11. Hampton v. Kentucky, 666 S.W.2d 737, 741 (Ky. 1984) (“life without parole for a juvenile, like death, is a sentence different in quality and character from a sentence to a term of years subject to parole.”). 12. Naovarath v. Nevada, 779 P.2d 944, 948-49 (Nev. 1989). 13. Roper, 543 U.S. at 573-574. 14. For example, in just the 10-year period between 1995 and 2004, 1343 children aged 14 or under were arrested for murder or non-negligent manslaughter nationwide. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States 290 (2004), available at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm; id. at p. 280 (2003); id. at p. 244 (2002); id. at p. 244 (2001); id. at p. 226 (2000); id. at p. 222 (1999); id. at p. 220 (1998); id. at p. 232 (1997); id. at p. 224 (1996); id. at p. 218 (1995). 15. Meg Laughlin, Does separation equal suffering?, St. Petersburg Times, Dec. 17, 2006, 1A. 16. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 37, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3, 28 I.L.M. 1448, 1468-1470 (entered into force Sept. 2, 1990). The Committee on the Rights of the Child, which is the implementation authority for the treaty, recently made clear in a General Comment: “The death penalty and a life sentence without the possibility of parole are explicitly prohibited in
35 article 37(a) CRC.” Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 10: Children’s Rights in Juvenile Justice, ¶ 11, U.N. Doc. CRC/C/GC/10 (Apr. 25, 2007). 17. Connie de la Vega & Michelle Leighton, Special Report on Human Rights Violations in Sentencing Children to Die in Prison: State Practice of Imposing Life Without Possibility of Parole 5 (2007). 18. Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee on the United States of America, ¶ 34, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/USA/ CO/3/Rev.1 (Dec. 18, 2006) (determining that life without parole sentencing for children does not comply with articles 7 or 24(1) of the ICCPR). 19. Committee Against Torture, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee Against Torture: United States of America, ¶ 34, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/USA/CO/2 (July 25, 2006). 20. G.A. Res. 61/146, ¶ 31(a), U.N. Doc. A/Res/61/146 (Jan. 23, 2007). 21. Human Rights Watch, No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons (2002), available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report4.html#_1_24 (citing Daniel Welzer-Lang, Lilian Mathieu and Michael Faure, Sexualits et violences en prison 150-53 (1996); Carl Weiss & David James Friar, Terror in the Prisons: Homosexual Rape and Why Society Condones It 74 (1974) (explaining that “[n]o age escapes prison rape, but youth is hit the hardest”). 22. National Institute of Justice, NIJ’s Response to the Prison Rape Elimination Act 60, Corrections Today (Feb. 2006), available at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ nij/213137.pdf. 23. 42 U.S.C.A. 15601 (2003) (congressional findings in support of Prison Rape Elimination Act). 24. Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 115-16 (1982). 25. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Child Maltreatment 2005 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007), available at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/ cm05/index.htm. 26. Nancy Kaser-Boyd, Ph.D., Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders in Children and Adults: The Legal Relevance, 20 W. St. U. L. Rev. 319 (1993).
36 Photo by Steve Liss Steve Photo by
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This report was researched, written, and produced by the Equal Justice Initiative. EJI would like to thank Steve Liss, John Earle, Gigi Cohen, Glenn Paul, and Sean Gallagher for their wonderful photography and generous contributions to this report. Special thanks to EJI senior attorney Aaryn Urell for research, writing, and production coordination. Thanks also to Rebecca Kiley, Alicia D’Addario, Rachel Germany, Irene Joe, Robert Singagliese, Randy Susskind, Marc Shapiro, Cathleen Price, and Lee Eaton at EJI for their research, writing, and production assistance. We are also grateful to Al and Diane Kaneb for their support. Equal Justice Initiative 122 Commerce Street Montgomery, Alabama 36104 (334) 269-1803 www.eji.org Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation
July 14, 2009 Juvenile Life without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation
This is the first nationwide, empirical study focused exclusively on juvenile offenders who received life without parole sentences (JLWOP) for non-homicides.1 The 2009 update of
“The Rest of Their Lives: Life Without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States,” a
Human Rights Watch Report, found that there are 2,574 inmates in the United States, who at the time of their criminal offense were juveniles and who received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.2 These teenagers will spend their natural life in prison and will only be
“released” at time of death.3 In contrast to the 2,574 JLWOP inmates in the U.S., no other country in the world, in practice, imprisons juvenile offenders to life without parole sentences.4
This study’s exclusive focus is on a subgroup of this JLWOP population: those who have committed non-homicide offenses. This study sheds light on the often hidden population of youths who are sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides. See Appendix I for a profile of one of these youths. The objective of this study is to provide the judiciary, policy makers, and the public the latest data on juvenile life without parole sentences for non-homicides.
1 Hereinafter in this report, “juvenile offender” means an individual who committed his or her offense before the age of 18, even if at the time of sentencing the juvenile offender was over age 18. 2 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, STATE DISTRIBUTION OF ESTIMATED 2,574 JUVENILE OFFENDERS SERVING JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE (Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update) (2009), http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/JLWOP_Table_May_7_2009.pdf. See also, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH AND AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, THE REST OF THEIR LIVES: LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE FOR CHILD OFFENDERS IN THE UNITED STATES (Rest of Their Lives 2005) (2005), http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/TheRestofTheirLives.pdf and HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, THE REST OF THEIR LIVES: LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE FOR YOUTH OFFENDERS IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2008 (Rest of Their Lives 2008 Update) (2008), http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us1005execsum.pdf. 3 See, Nebraska Department of Correctional Services’ Inmate Locator at http://dcs- inmatesearch.ne.gov/Corrections/InmateDisplayServlet?DcsId=42980, which shows the “release” of Terrance Johnson, an inmate who was serving a life without parole sentence for a crime committed as a juvenile, on the day of his death. 4 Rest of Their Lives 2008 Update at 1, 8. See also, Connie del la Vega and Michelle Leighton, Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice, 42 U.S.F.L.REV. 983 (Spring 2008).
1 The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted certiorari in two cases - Terrance Graham v. State of Florida5 and Joe Sullivan v. State of Florida.6 In the Graham case, the juvenile life without parole offense was armed burglary, and in the Sullivan case, the juvenile life without parole offense was sexual battery. Graham was 16 at time of offense and Sullivan was 13. Both cases are non-homicides (no murder was involved) and both Graham and Sullivan were convicted and sentenced to life without parole sentences based on Florida criminal law.
These two cases raise the identical legal issue: whether a juvenile life without parole sentence for a non-homicide offense violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The question before the Court addresses the non-homicide subgroup, which is the subject matter of this study.
I. Summary of Juvenile Life without Parole Non-Homicide Facts
• 111 is the estimated total number of juveniles who received life without parole for non-
homicides in the 50 states. See Table A.
• 77 is the total number of juveniles who received life without parole sentences for non-
homicides in Florida. See Table A.
• 36 states have zero juveniles serving life without parole sentences for non-homicides. See
Table A.
• Only 7 of the states with confirmed data have any juvenile offenders sentenced to life
without parole for non-homicide offenses. See Table A.
5 Terrance Graham v. State of Florida, 129 S.Ct. 2157 (2009) (Opinion granting certiorari). See also, Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Terrance Graham v. State of Florida, 2008 WL 6031405 (Nov. 20, 2008) (No. 08-7412). 6 Joe Sullivan v. State of Florida, 129 S.Ct. 2157 (2009) (Opinion granting certiorari). See also, Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Joe Sullivan v. State of Florida, 2008 WL 6031406 (Dec. 4, 2008) (No. 08-7621).
2 • Florida sentences juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide offenses at 19
times the rate expected based on analysis of other comparable states.
• Florida is the only state, with confirmed data, in the nation that has sentenced juveniles to
life without parole for burglary, battery, or carjacking. See Chart C.
• 84% of the total non-homicide juvenile life without parole population in Florida is Black.
See Chart D.
• 13 years old is the earliest age at offense for youths who have received life without parole
sentences in Florida. See Chart E.
• There are 7 states for which the researchers have no reliable data on juvenile offenders
sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides: Alabama, Delaware, Nevada,
Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.7
II. Summary of Conclusion
Florida’s practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non- homicide cases is unique among American states. The data presented here provide overwhelming evidence that Florida is out of step with the nation: 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.
III. Questions
This study asks the following questions:
7 The researchers have reliable data on all other states or have determined that no JLWOP sentences are permitted in the state.
3 1) How many non-homicide juvenile life without parole inmates are there presently in the
50 states?
2) What is the distribution nationally of non-homicide juvenile life without parole inmates?
3) What is the distribution nationally of types of non-homicide offenses for which juveniles
are sentenced to life without parole?
4) What is the age and race profile of Florida inmates with JLWOP sentences for non-
homicides?
5) How does Florida compare with all states and with just other JLWOP states on number
and type of juvenile life without parole sentences for non-homicides?
6) Is Florida’s practice of sentencing juveniles to life without parole sentences unusual in
the context of all states and in the context of JLWOP states?
This is a preliminary study on the above questions. As more data are obtained, this study will be updated.
IV. Definitions
What is a “juvenile life without parole sentence for non-homicide?” This study defines the key terms of this question as follows. “Juvenile” means any person under the age of 18 at the time of the criminal offense. Second, “life” means the natural life span of the individual. Third,
“without parole” means the juvenile is not eligible for release by a state parole board. Fourth,
“non-homicide” is any criminal conviction where the juvenile is not convicted of any type or degree of homicide. “Non-homicide” does not include any convictions for attempted homicides or any convictions for felony murder, where the juvenile did not kill anyone but was convicted as
4 an accomplice to a murder.8 Individuals convicted of attempted homicide or felony murder were defined as homicide offenders.
V. Methodology
The study’s primary source of data is from individual state government departments of corrections. In 2009, the researchers of this study sent public record requests to 46 states.9 See
Appendix II for discussion of individual state data collection.
VI. Discussion
Florida’s practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non- homicide offenses is unusual in this country. This conclusion is based on data regarding 43 states.
Five states do not legally permit sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for any offense: homicide or non-homicide. Those are Alaska, Colorado (2005 and after), Kansas,
New Mexico, Oregon,10 and Texas (2009 and after).11 Kentucky does not permit sentencing anyone under the age of 16 to life without parole; juvenile offenders 16 and over may only be sentenced to life without parole for capital offenses.12
8 In this study all individuals with one or more JLWOP sentences for homicide crimes were excluded from consideration as non-homicide offenders, even if they had additional JLWOP sentences for non-homicide crimes. Thus, there are other individuals in Florida and possibly other states who have JLWOP sentences for non-homicides that are not included in this report because they also have a JLWOP sentence for homicide. 9 The four states that were not contacted are Alaska, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oregon which do not legally permit the sentence of JLWOP. 10 Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update (for Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oregon). 11 S.B. 839, 81st Leg., Reg. Sess. (Tex. 2009) (passed in both House and Senate, May, 2009). 12 KY. Rev. Stat. §640.040 (effective date July 1, 1987).
5 Table A
The total estimate of JLWOP sentences for non-homicides in the U.S. is 111. Table A shows the distribution of the estimated 111 juvenile offenders serving life without parole in the
43 states for which there is confirmed data. See Appendix II for data sources.13 Only 7 states of the 43 with confirmed data have juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole for non- homicide crimes. Among the states shown in Table A, Florida accounts for 77 (69.4 percent) of the national total of JLWOP for non-homicide, followed by, Louisiana 17 (15.3 percent), Iowa 6
(5.4 percent), Mississippi 5 (4.5 percent) and California 4 (3.6 percent). Two states (Nebraska and South Carolina) have only one juvenile serving life without parole for a non-homicide offense; the remaining 36 states in Table A have zero juveniles serving life without parole sentences for non-homicides. As shown in Table A, Florida is unique among these jurisdictions: no other state comes close to its practice of sentencing juveniles to life without parole for non- homicide offenses.
Table B
As Table B shows, 10 states account for 1,966 (76.4 percent) of the total national JLWOP population of 2,574 (homicides and non-homicides).14
Three of those ten large JLWOP states, California, Florida, and Louisiana, account for
88.3 percent of the national total (111) of juveniles sentenced to JLWOP for non-homicides.
While these ten states with large a number of JLWOPs (over 50) have rendered a total of
1,966 JLWOP sentences, only 98 juveniles (5 percent of the total of the 10 states) received this
13 Appendix II also discusses the states for which the researchers have no data and the reasons for this. 14 The total figure of 2,574 juvenile offenders serving life without parole sentences comes from the Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update, supra n. 2.
6 sentence for a non-homicide offense. 78 percent of those 98 juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides were sentenced in Florida.
The Percentage Column on Table B shows the portion of JLWOP sentences in each state that were given for non-homicides. By this measure, Florida once again is clearly unique among these states. The proportion of all juvenile life without parole sentences that were for non- homicides in Florida is 25.5 percent, five times higher than second place Louisiana. Put another way, suppose Florida’s penchant for incarcerating juvenile non-homicide offenders to life without parole was limited to the average (5 percent) of the states shown in Table B. Under this scenario Florida would have sentenced only 15 juveniles to life without parole for non-homicide offenders. The actual figure of 77 is five times higher.
It is clear that Florida’s high rate of JLWOP incarcerations for non-homicides distorts the
“average” use of JLWOP sentencing shown in Table B. Subtracting Florida from the calculations in Table B, the remaining states account for 21 JLWOP sentences for non-homicide offenses – 1.3 percent of all JLWOP sentences in these 9 states.15
If Florida limited its sentencing of non-homicide juvenile offenders to life without parole to the average percent of the nine other states with a large number of JLWOPs (over 50), i.e., 1.3 percent, only four juveniles would have received such a sentence in Florida. Thus, if we use as a benchmark these other states which account for a large portion of all JLWOP sentences in the
U.S., we see that Florida’s tendency to incarcerate non-homicide juvenile offenders to life sentences without parole is over 19 times the number that we would expect when Florida’s own sentencing practices are eliminated from the data.
15 Subtracting Florida’s 302 total JLWOPs from the total JLWOP column and 77 non-homicide JLWOPs from the non-homicide JLWOP column leaves a total of 1664 and only 21 for non-homicide offenses (21 is 1.3 percent of 1664).
7 Chart C
Across the nation, juvenile offenders have been sentenced to life without parole for the following non-homicide crimes: kidnapping, sexual battery, robbery, battery, burglary, and carjacking. 62 juvenile offenders have been sentenced to life without parole in the country for robbery, burglary, battery, and carjacking.16 61 of these juvenile offenders were sentenced in
Florida. Chart C shows the national distribution of juvenile life without parole for robbery, battery, burglary, and carjacking. Florida is the only state with confirmed data to have sentenced youths to life without parole for burglary, battery, and car jacking. Twenty four of the seventy seven non-homicide juvenile offenders have a JLWOP conviction for a burglary. Of these twenty four offenders, three have only one JLWOP conviction. Florida has sentenced 46 youths to JLWOP for armed robbery. Only one other armed robbery JLWOP conviction exists in the nation: in Mississippi.17 All other reported JLWOP sentences for non-homicide crimes in the
U.S. were for kidnapping and sexual battery.
Chart D and Chart E
In this preliminary study, the researchers surveyed the race, age, and offense category of juveniles who received life without parole sentences for non-homicides in Florida.18 Table D shows that 84% of this population is Black.19 Table E shows that the youngest age at the time of offense is 13 years old.20
16 There may be other individuals in the country with JLWOP sentences for these crimes that are not included in this study because they also have a JLWOP sentence for homicide. 17 The inmate in Mississippi was originally eligible for parole, but violated parole on more than one occasion and now has no possibility of parole. (Mississippi Department of Corrections, July 8, 2009). 18 The offense dates for these offenders begin in the early 1970s. 19 Of the juvenile offenders in Florida sentenced to life without parole for homicide offenses, 62% are Black. (Florida Department of Corrections, June 10, 2009). 20 The Florida Department of Corrections lists two inmates as 13 years old at the time of their JLWOP offense. These are Joe Sullivan and Douglas Blackshear. While Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life without parole for his
8
Conclusion
The data presented here provide overwhelming evidence that Florida is out of step with the nation: it stands alone in its willingness to condemn young people to life in prison for non- homicides without a chance of a reassessment of their lives in some future time.
Acknowledgements
The researchers wish to thank the state departments of corrections around the country for their data response. We wish to specially thank Ashley Nellis, Ph.D. and The Sentencing Project for their on-going advice and help in data collection. We also wish to thank the following individuals around the country for data assistance: Mel Beakman, Elizabeth Calvin, Beth Colgan,
Andy Hoover, Mary Ellen Johnson, Jody Kent, Catherine Lambert, Deb LaBelle, Shobha
Mahadev, Lia Monahon, Kelly Orians, and Patricia Souny.
Study Researchers
Paolo G. Annino, J.D., Ph.D. Director of Public Interest Law Center, Florida State University
College of Law, Tallahassee, Florida
David W. Rasmussen, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Social Sciences, Professor of Economics, holder of the James H. Gapinski Professorship, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
Chelsea Rice, J.D. Graduate Fellow, Public Interest Law Center, Florida State University
College of Law, Tallahassee, Florida
original crime at the age of 13, Douglas Blackshear received his life without parole sentences as violations of probation when he was 19 years old. The original crimes he was violated on occurred when he was 13 years old.
9 Research Assistants
Jessica Harmsen, Law Student, Florida State University College of Law
Yale Olenick, Law Student, Nova Southeastern College of Law
10 APPENDIX I
Kenneth Young: Profile of a Florida Juvenile Sentenced to Life without Parole for Non-Homicide
Kenneth Young,21 now 24 years old, is serving four life without parole sentences for three armed robberies which occurred within a month’s time in the year 2000 in and around Tampa, Florida. During this period Kenneth turned 15 years old. When Kenneth was 14 years old, his mother’s 25 year-old drug dealer told him that his mother owed a three thousand dollar drug debt. This drug dealer threatened Kenneth that if he did not participate in these robberies his mother would be harmed.
Kenneth’s part in these robberies was to take the money and the surveillance tapes, while the drug dealer held a gun on the clerk and made the demands. No shots were ever fired. Kenneth did not have a prior criminal history. The 25 year-old drug dealer had an extensive criminal history. Despite this, the drug dealer received a life without parole sentence for only one of the offenses for which Kenneth received life without parole sentences.
Kenneth’s mother was addicted to crack cocaine while Kenneth was growing up.
She was rarely home. Kenneth’s older sister, a minor herself, was generally the only person around to care for Kenneth. Kenneth’s father died before Kenneth was born. By the time Kenneth was 13 years old he had stopped going to school completely. He was young, uneducated, and alone when he was brought into crime by an adult.
At the conclusion of Kenneth’s first trial, the Judge sentenced him to a term of prison for the rest of his natural life. Kenneth was so immature and uneducated he did
21 The information in this profile was gathered by the researchers through personal interviews with Mr. Young between 2006 and 2009. Affidavit of Kenneth Young on file with researchers. See, Florida Department of Corrections Offender Search page for Kenneth Young at http://www.dc.state.fl.us/ActiveInmates/detail.asp?Bookmark=1&From=list&SessionID=484412624.
1 not understand what this meant. After the sentencing was over he asked what his sentence was. When he was told he had received a life sentence, he did not believe it.
He thought the officers were trying to scare him.
Since incarceration, Kenneth has been a model inmate. He has received only one disciplinary report during his time in prison. It was for failing to make his bed. He is working towards obtaining his G.E.D. Previously, he was employed as an aide to a disabled inmate, and since his transfer to a new correctional institution he has become a barber. Since incarceration, Kenneth has grown from a young boy to a young man.
Kenneth is one of the 77 juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non- homicide crimes in Florida.
2 APPENDIX II
Data Sources by State
Alabama: Data not available as of time of publication. Data request is pending.
Alaska: Alaska prohibits sentencing juveniles to life without parole. Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
Arizona: Arizona did not provide total number of juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Arizona does not have any juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides according to correspondence from the Arizona Department of Corrections General Counsel, dated June 26, 2009, on file with researchers.
Arkansas: Data received from Arkansas Department of Corrections, July 7, 2009.
California: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation data not available as of time of publication. Data included in report were received from Human Rights Watch, June 24 and 25, 2009. The Human Rights Watch data is based on June 2008 data provided to Human Rights Watch by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Colorado: Data received from Colorado Department of Corrections, June 26, 2009.
Connecticut: Connecticut did not provide total number of juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Data request as to this issue is still pending. Connecticut does not have any juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides according to correspondence from the Connecticut Department of Corrections, dated June 8, 2009, on file with the researchers.
Delaware: Data not available as of time of publication. Data request is pending.
Florida: Data received from the Florida Department of Corrections, June 10, 2009.
Georgia: Data retrieved from Georgia Department of Corrections Inmate Query, available at http://www.dcor.state.ga.us/GDC/OffenderQuery/jsp/OffQryForm.
1 jsp. Georgia Department of Corrections data request is still pending. From the Inmate Query, researchers confirmed 5 individuals serving life without parole sentences in Georgia for crimes committed before the age of 18- all had convictions for homicide. Researchers found 11 individuals serving life without parole sentences in Georgia who were either 17 or 18 years old at the time of their offense- all had convictions for homicide.
Hawaii: Hawaii did not provide total number of juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Data request as to this issue is still pending. Hawaii does not have any juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides according to correspondence from the Hawaii Department of Corrections, dated June 26, 2009, which states, “[i]n Hawaii, the only individuals sentenced to Life without Parole are for Murder in the First Degree,” on file with the researchers.
Idaho: Data received from Idaho Department of Corrections, July 1, 2009.
Illinois: Illinois Department of Corrections data request pending. Data for this report received from Juvenile Life without Parole Project, Children and Family Justice Center, Northwestern University School of Law, and Illinois Coalition for Fair Sentencing of Children, June 25, 2009. Data last updated February 2008.
Indiana: Data received from Indiana Department of Correction, June 3, 2009.
Iowa: Data received from Iowa Department of Corrections, June 24, 2009.
Kansas: Kansas prohibits life without parole sentences for juveniles. Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
Kentucky: Data received from Kentucky Department of Corrections, July 9, 2009.
Louisiana: Louisiana Department of Corrections provided data on juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicides, June 24, 2009. Data request is still pending as to total number of juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Total number used in this report is from Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
Maine: Data received from Maine Department of Corrections, July 7, 2009.
2 Maryland: Data received from Maryland Department of Corrections, June 10, 2009.
Massachusetts: Massachusetts Department of Corrections data request pending. Data for this report received from Children’s Law Center of Massachusetts, June 24, 2009.
Michigan: Michigan Department of Corrections data request pending. Data for this report received from ACLU Juvenile Life without Parole Initiative, July 1, 2009.
Minnesota: Data received from Minnesota Department of Corrections, June 8, 2009.
Mississippi: Data received from Mississippi Department of Corrections, June 29, 2009. Mississippi DOC supplemented this data with analysis of some of the data on July 8, 2009. Mississippi allows an inmate, under certain circumstances, at the age of 65, to petition the trial court for “conditional release.” See Miss. Stat. 47-5-139(1) and Miss. Stat. 47-7-3. Mississippi Assistant Attorney General Jane Mapp reports (1) that Mississippi’s conditional release process is not part of Mississippi’s parole system, (2) no inmate, as of present, is eligible to petition the sentencing court for conditional release under these statutes, and (3) once an inmate petitions for conditional release the sentencing court has total discretion. E- mail correspondence, dated July 14, 2009, on file with researchers and telephonic conversation with research assistant. Note: Equal Justice Initiative, counsel for Joe Sullivan, disputes Mississippi’s determination that there are 5 individuals serving life without parole for non-homicides in Mississippi.
Missouri: Data received from Missouri Department of Corrections, June 26, 2009.
Montana: Data received from Montana Department of Corrections, June 4, 2009.
Nebraska: Data received from Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, August 20, 2007. Updated by Family and Friends of Inmates, Omaha August 2008.
Nevada: Data not available at time of publication. Data request is pending.
New Hampshire: Data received from New Hampshire Department of Corrections, June 5, 2009.
3 New Jersey: New Jersey has no juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Ashley Nellis, Ph.D., Research Analyst, The Sentencing Project, Testimony to the Pennsylvania Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Public Hearing on the Issue of Juvenile Lifers (Sept. 22, 2008). See also, Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
New Mexico: New Mexico prohibits sentencing juveniles to life without parole. Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
New York: New York has no juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Ashley Nellis, Ph.D., Research Analyst, The Sentencing Project, Testimony to the Pennsylvania Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Public Hearing on the Issue of Juvenile Lifers (Sept. 22, 2008). See also, Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
North Carolina: Data received from North Carolina Department of Corrections, June 30, 2009.
North Dakota: Data received from North Dakota Department of Corrections, June 5, 2009.
Ohio: Data received from Ohio Department of Corrections, June 30, 2009.
Oklahoma: Data not available at time of publication. Oklahoma Department of Corrections provided only partial data. Data request is pending. Oklahoma provided data on date of admission not date of offense (without offense date data one cannot determine the exact number of juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole, e.g. a nineteen year old at admission may have committed his life without parole offense as a minor). The researchers excluded data received from Oklahoma for this reason.
Oregon: Oregon prohibits life without parole sentences for juveniles. Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
Pennsylvania: Data received from Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, June 30, 2009.
Rhode Island: Data received from Rhode Island Department of Corrections, July 1, 2009.
South Carolina: Data received from South Carolina Department of Corrections, June 16, 2009.
4 South Dakota: Data received from South Dakota Department of Corrections, June 16, 2009.
Tennessee: Data received from Tennessee Department of Corrections, June 26, 2009.
Texas: Data received from Texas Department of Corrections, June 8, 2009.
Utah: Data is not available at time of publication. In a letter dated, June 29, 2009, Utah Department of Corrections stated Utah does not have any inmates sentenced to life without parole who were admitted to prison before the age of 18. Data request is pending as to the issue of whether Utah has any inmates serving life without parole whose offense date is prior to the age of 18. (See Oklahoma above for further explanation of this distinction).
Vermont: Vermont has no juvenile offenders serving life without parole. Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update. Vermont Department of Corrections data request is pending.
Virginia: Data are not available at time of publication. Virginia Department of Corrections denied researchers public records request, June 5, 2009.
Washington: Data are from trial court files. Columbia Legal Services, Institutions Project and DLA Piper reviewed all trial files between May 2007 and January 2009. Data was confirmed by the Washington Sentencing Guidelines Commission, February 2009.
West Virginia: West Virginia has no juveniles sentenced to life without parole. Ashley Nellis, Ph.D., Research Analyst, The Sentencing Project, Testimony to the Pennsylvania Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Public Hearing on the Issue of Juvenile Lifers (Sept. 22, 2008). See also, Rest of Their Lives 2009 Update.
Wisconsin: Data are not available at time of publication. Wisconsin Department of Corrections denied researchers public records request, June 29, 2009.
Wyoming: Data received from Wyoming Department of Corrections, June 15, 2009.
5 Estimated National Distribution of Non-Homicide Juvenile Offenders Serving Life Without Parole Table A
State Number Total Percentage Florida- 69.4% 77 69.4% Louisiana- 15.3% 17 15.3% Iowa- 5.4% 6 5.4% Mississippi- 4.5% 5 4.5% California- 3.6% 4 3.6% Nebraska- 0.9% 1 0.9% South Carolina- 0.9% 1 0.9% Alaska 0 0.0% Arizona 0 0.0% Arkansas 0 0.0% Colorado 0 0.0% Connecticut 0 0.0% Georgia 0 0.0% Hawaii 0 0.0% Idaho 0 0.0% Illinois 0 0.0% Indiana 0 0.0% Kansas 0 0.0% Kentucky 0 0.0% Maine 0 0.0% Maryland 0 0.0% Massachusetts 0 0.0% Michigan 0 0.0% Minnesota 0 0.0% Missouri 0 0.0% Montana 0 0.0% New Hampshire 0 0.0% New Jersey 0 0.0% New Mexico 0 0.0% New York 0 0.0% North Carolina 0 0.0% North Dakota 0 0.0% Ohio 0 0.0% Oregon 0 0.0% Pennsylvania 0 0.0% Rhode Island 0 0.0% South Dakota 0 0.0% Tennessee 0 0.0% Texas 0 0.0% Vermont 0 0.0% Washington 0 0.0% West Virginia 0 0.0% Wyoming 0 0.0% Total 111 100.00% See Appendix II for data sources. State Distribution of Non-Homicide Juvenile Offenders Serving Life Without Parole in States With More Than 50 Total Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) Offenders Table B
State Total JLWOP Non-Homicide JLWOP Percentage
Arkansas 58 0 0.00% California 249 4 1.6% Florida 302 77 25.5% Illinois 103 0 0.0% Louisiana* 335 17 5.1% Massachusetts 57 0 0.0% Michigan 347 0 0.0% Missouri 78 0 0.0% North Carolina 62 0 0.0% Pennsylvania 375 0 0.0%
Total 1966 98 5.0% Percent of U.S total^ 76.4% 88.3%
* See Appendix II for data source. ^1,966 is 76.4% of 2,574, which is the total estimated number of juvenile offenders serving life without parole in the United States. (Rest of Their Lives, 2009 Update).
98 is 88.3% of 111, which is the total estimated number of juvenile offenders serving life without parole for non-homicides in the United States. (Shown on Table A).
Except as otherwise noted data was reported directly from state departments of correction. National Distribution of Juvenile Offenders Sentenced to Life Without Parole (JLWOP) for Armed Robbery, Battery, Burglary, and Carjacking Chart C
1 Florida
Rest of the Nation
61
There may be other individuals in the U.S. with JLWOP sentences for these non-homicide offenses, but they are excluded from this study because of their JLWOP sentences for homicide. Florida Distribution of Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) Offenders by Race Chart D
White- 12 Black- 65 16% Hispanic- 0 Hispanic- 0 0% White- 12
Black- 65 84%
Total JLWOP Non-Homicide Offenders: 77
Florida Department of Corrections, June 10, 2009, Bureau of Research and Data Analysis. Florida Distribution of Non-Homicide Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) Offenders by Age Chart E
40
35
30
25
20 39
15 24 10
5 8 4 2 0 13 14 15 16 17 Age Total JLWOP Non-Homicide: 77
The Rest of Their Lives
Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States
Summary of Report
Link to full report: http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11578/section/1
Human Rights Watch
October 11, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International.
Summary
I'm a former cop. I'm a true believer in law and order. But my son was a child when this happened. He wasn't thinking like an adult, and he wasn't an adult . . . how is it that the law can treat him as if he is one?
-Frank C., father of youth offender sentenced to life without parole, October 22, 2004
Children can and do commit terrible crimes. When they do, they should be held accountable, but in a manner that reflects their special capacity for rehabilitation. However, in the United States the punishment is all too often no different from that given to adults.
In civil matters, state and federal laws recognize the immaturity and irresponsibility of children. For example, they typically establish eighteen as the minimum age to get married without parental consent, to vote, to sign contracts, or to serve on a jury. Yet in forty-two states and under federal law, the commission of a serious crime by children under eighteen-indeed in some states children as young as ten-transforms them instantly into adults for criminal justice purposes. Childrenwho are too young to buy cigarettes legally, boys who may not have started to get facial hair, kids who still have stuffed animals on their beds, are tried as adults, and if convicted, receive adult prison sentences, including life without parole (LWOP).
This report is the first ever national analysis of life without parole sentences for children. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have discovered that there are currently at least 2,225 people incarcerated in the United States who have been sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for crimes they committed as children. In the United States, departments of corrections do not maintain publicly accessible and accurate statistics about child offenders incarcerated in adult prisons, and there is no national depository of these data. Therefore, we were able to collect data on individuals sentenced to life without parole for crimes they committed as children only by requesting that it be specially produced for us by each state's corrections department.
The public may believe that children who receive life without parole sentences are "super-predators" with long records of vicious crimes. In fact, an estimated 59 percent received the sentence for their first-ever criminal conviction. Sixteen percent were between thirteen and fifteen years old at the time they committed their crimes. While the vast majority were convicted of murder, an estimated 26 percent were convicted of felony murder in which the teen participated in a robbery or burglary during which a co- participant committed murder, without the knowledge or intent of the teen. Racial disparities are marked. Nationwide, the estimated rate at which black youth receive life without parole sentences (6.6 per 10,000) is ten times greater than the rate for white youth (0.6 per 10,000).
Our research shows significant differences among the states in the use of life without parole sentences for children. For example, Virginia, Louisiana, and Michigan have rates that are three to seven-and-a-half times higher than the national average of 1.77 per 100,000 children nationwide. At the other end of the spectrum, New Jersey and Utah permit life without parole for children but have no child offenders currently serving the sentence. Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Mexico, New York, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia all prohibit the sentence for youth offenders. In May of 2005, Texas changed its law to allow individuals found guilty of a capital felony (including those below the age of eighteen) to be sentenced to life without parole. However, we could not definitively interpret this legislation, nor could we include data from Texas in this report, because the law went into effect on September 1, 2005, meaning it had not yet been applied or interpreted by the courts of Texas when this report went to press.
Before 1980, life without parole was rarely imposed on children. The number of child offenders who received the sentence each year began to increase in the late 1980s, reaching 50 in 1989. It peaked in 1996 at 152 and then began to drop off; in 2003, 54 child offenders entered prison with the sentence. But states have by no means abandoned the use of life without parole for child offenders: the estimated rate at which the sentence is imposed on children nationwide remains at least three times higher today than it was fifteen years ago. In fact, the proportion of youth offenders convicted of murder who receive life without parole has been increasing, suggesting a tendency among states to punish them with increasing severity. For example, in 1990 there were 2,234 youth convicted of murder in the United States, 2.9 percent of whom were sentenced to life without parole. Ten years later, in 2000, the number of youth murderers had dropped to 1,006, but 9.1 percent were sentenced to life without parole.
In addition, in eleven out of the seventeen years between 1985 and 2001, youth convicted of murder in the United States were more likely to enter prison with a life without parole sentence than adult murder offenders. Even when we consider murder offenders sentenced to either life without parole or death sentences, in four of those seventeen years, youth were more likely than adults to receive one of those two most punitive sentences.
Such harsh treatment for youth offenders cannot be squared with the most fundamental tenets of human rights law. International standards recognize that children, a particularly vulnerable group, are entitled to special care and protection because they are still developing physically, mentally, and emotionally. States are required to offer a range of alternatives to institutionalization. The imprisonment of a child should always be a measure of last resort, focused on the child's rehabilitation, and for the shortest suitable period of time. While incarceration may be proper for youth convicted of very serious crimes such as murder, this report argues that a sentence of life without the possibility of parole is never appropriate for youth offenders.
The dramatic increase in the imposition of life without parole sentences on child offenders in the United States is, at least in part, a consequence of widespread changes in U.S. criminal justice policies that gathered momentum in the last decades of the twentieth century. Responding to increases in crime and realizing the political advantages of promoting tough law and order policies, state and federal legislators steadily increased the length of prison sentences for different crimes and expanded the types of offenders facing prison sentences. They also promoted adult trials for child offenders by lowering the minimum age for criminal court jurisdiction, authorizing automatic transfers from juvenile to adult courts, and increasing the authority of prosecutors to file charges against children directly in criminal court rather than proceeding in the juvenile justice system. The United States thus abandoned its commitment to a juvenile justice system and the youth rehabilitation principles embedded in it.
"Adult time for adult crime" may be a catchy phrase, but it reflects a poor understanding of criminal justice principles. If the punishment is to fit the crime, both the nature of the offense and the culpability or moral responsibility of the offender must be taken into account. As the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, the blameworthiness of children cannot be equated with that of adults, even when they commit the same crime. Most recently, in Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the Court ruled that the execution of child offenders was unconstitutional, finding that juveniles are "categorically less culpable" than adult criminals. The ruling noted that juveniles lack the "well-formed" identities of adults, are susceptible to "immature and irresponsible behavior," and vulnerable to "negative influences and outside pressures." Neuroscientists have recently identified anatomical bases for these differences between juveniles and adults, establishing the behavioral significance of the less developed brains of children.
Life without parole sentences for child offenders-meaning there is no possibility of For supporters of life without parole sentences, the immaturity of child offenders is not a good enough reason to abolish the sentence. They argue that the punishment also serves to deter future crime. But does youth deterrence actually happen? Research has failed to show that the threat of adult punishment deters adolescents from crime. This is not surprising, given the well-documented limited abilities of children, including teenagers, to anticipate the consequences of their actions and rationally assess their options. Few adolescents are likely to be able to grasp the true significance of a life sentence. One twenty-nine-year-old woman serving life without parole told a researcher for this report that when she was sentenced, at the age of sixteen:
I didn't understand "life without" . . . [that] to have "life without," you were locked down forever. You know it really dawned on me when [after several years in prison, a journalist] came and . . . he asked me, "Do you realize that you're gonna be in prison for the rest of your life?" And I said, "Do you really think that?" You know. . . and I was like, "For the rest of my life? Do you think that God will leave me in prison for the rest of my life?"[2]
Virtually all countries in the world reject the punishment of life without parole for child offenders. At least 132 countries reject life without parole for child offenders in domestic law or practice. And all countries except the United States and Somalia have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly forbids "life imprisonment without possibility of release" for "offenses committed by persons below eighteen years of age." Of the 154 countries for which Human Rights Watch was able to obtain data, only three currently have people serving life without parole for crimes they committed as children, and it appears that those four countries combined have only about a dozen such cases.
Sentencing children as adults means they may well enter prison while they are still under eighteen. One third of the youth offenders now serving life without parole entered prison while they were still children, in violation of international human rights standards that prohibit the incarceration of children with adults. But regardless of the precise age at which they entered prison, all have faced the same conditions as the older adults with whom they live: gangs, sexual predators, extortion, and violence. They also confront special hardships inherent in their sentence. Although it may take time to fully register in a child's mind, the sentence sends an unequivocal message to children that they are banished from society forever. Youth are told that they will die in prison and are left to wrestle with the anger and emotional turmoil of coming to grips with that fact. They are denied educational, vocational, and other programs to develop their minds and skills because access to those programs is typically restricted to prisoners who will someday be released, and for whom rehabilitation therefore remains a goal. Not surprisingly, child offenders sentenced to life without parole believe that U.S. society has thrown them away. As one young man told a researcher for this report, "Seems like. . .since we're sentenced to life in prison, society says, 'Well, we locked them up, they are disposed of, removed.'"[3]
U.S. federal and state governments have the responsibility of ensuring community safety. But government is also responsible for ensuring that justice is served when a person is tried, convicted, and sentenced. The terrible crimes committed by children can ruin lives, causing injury and death to the victims and grief to their families and friends. Sentencing must reflect the seriousness of the crime, but it also must acknowledge that culpability can be substantially diminished by reason of the youth and immaturity of the perpetrator. Child offenders should be given the possibility of freedom one day, when they have matured and demonstrated their remorse and capacity for rehabilitation.
Note: In keeping with international human rights standards, throughout this report we use the terms "child" and "children" to refer to persons under the age of eighteen. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to youth, adolescents, minors, and juveniles also refer to persons under the age of eighteen. release during the prisoner's lifetime-effectively reject the well-established principle of criminal justice that children are less culpable than adults for crimes they commit. As the father of a teen offender serving life without parole pointed out to us: "I'm a former cop. I'm a true believer in law and order. But my son was a child when this happened. He wasn't thinking like an adult, and he wasn't an adult . . . how is it that the law can treat him as if he is one?"[1] The anguish and anger of a victim's family and friends may well be the same whether a murder is committed by a child or an adult. But justice requires a sentence commensurate with both the nature of the crime and the culpability of the offender.
[1]Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Frank C., Colorado, October 22, 2004.
[2] Human Rights Watch interview with Cheryl J., McPherson Unit, Newport, Arkansas, June 24, 2004 (pseudonym). Throughout this report, as indicated, prisoners' names have been concealed through the use of pseudonyms in order to protect their security and privacy. Everyone interviewed for this report was age eighteen or older at the time of the interview.
[3]Human Rights Watch interview with Javier M., Colorado State Penitentiary, Cañon City, Colorado, July 26, 2004 (pseudonym).
Ghetto Life 101
Recorded in Chicago, Illinois. Premiered May 18, 1993, on WBEZ Chicago, Chicago Public Radio.
In March, 1993, LeAlan Jones, thirteen, and Lloyd Newman, fourteen, collaborated with public radio producer David Isay to create the radio documentary Ghetto Life 101, their audio diaries of life on Chicago's South Side.
The boys taped for ten days, walking listeners through their daily lives: to school, to an overpass to throw rocks at cars, to a bus ride that takes them out of the ghetto, and to friends and family members in the community.
The candor in Jones and Newman's diaries brought listeners face to face with a portrait of poverty and danger and their effects on childhood in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Like Vietnam War veterans in the bodies of young boys, Jones and Newman described the bitter truth about the sounds of machine guns at night and the effects of a thriving drug world on a community.
Link to Listen: http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/ghetto_life_101/
Photo: http://www.prx.org/pieces/1510-ghetto-life-101 Transcript: http://soundportraits.org/on-air/ghetto_life_101/transcript.php Jones: Good morning. Day one. Walking to school. Leaving out the door.
(Door opens. Music fades up.)
Jones: This is my dog, Ferocious. You know why he got that name if you hear him bark.
(Bark)
Jones: I see the ghetto every day walking to school.
Some guys on the corner burning a fire. Be here summertime, wintertime, spring, fall -- every day. With they drink in they hands. Probably some White Port, Willie P, Jack Daniels, E&J.
I live here. This is home.
(Speaking to friends) What's up, Emmie? What's up, Doodoo?
This is my walk everyday, so I'm taking you on a little journey through my life. Yes, my life. Yeah.
(Music crescendos, then begins to fade.)
Jones: My name is LeAlan Jones and I'm thirteen years old. I live in a house just outside of the Ida B. Wells Projects. My best friend, Lloyd Newman, lives in the Ida Bees. This is our story.
(Knocking on Lloyd’s door)
Jones: Every morning I pick up Lloyd on the way to school. Today we're ready to work -- strapped with our tape recorders and microphones.
(Sound of Lloyd's house)
Newman: Whassup?
Jones: You got the Tom Brokaw-look, lookin' like Tom Brokaw. You got the Tom Brokaw, nigger, sit down.
Newman: This is Lloyd Newman and I'm fourteen years old. I live with my brothers and sisters in the Ida B. Wells projects.
Jones: Let me describe Lloyd. Lloyd is short. He weighs about 75 pounds. I have an inch between my fingers when I put them around his wrist. He got a head like a Martian.
Newman: Alright, now let me talk about LeAlan. His belly take up his whole body.
Jones: Like your head take up yours.
Jones: We been friends since first grade.
Newman: That's seven years!
Jones: Man -- seven years of our life together.
(Lloyd’s house fades out and the sounds of a classroom reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" fade in.)
Jones: Our first stop today is Donoghue Elementary School, where we're both in eighth grade. It's right across the street from Lloyd's house in the projects.
Students (reciting): Liberty and justice for all . . .
Teacher: Be seated. No, no . . .
Student: Good morning Vietnam.
Newman: Monday morning at 8:30.
Jones: It's kind of rowdy in the morning.
Teacher: Shante Hayes. Torrence Hinton. Absent. LeShawn Hunt. Absent. Uhh Terry Johnson. Absent.
Jones: That's Ms. Ford, our homeroom teacher. We give her a hard time.
Teacher: Fellas, would you please shut your mouths?
Jones: Some times we learn. Most of the time it's just too rowdy to learn.
Teacher: I can support myself. I can buy the things I want to because I learned to use my brain. Now lets try working on yours.
(Class giggles.)
O.K., the sheets that I have been giving you so far . . .
Newman: LeAlan and I interviewed our principal, Mrs. Tolson, about working at a school like Donoghue.
Jones: Is it hard being a teacher in this neighborhood?
Tolson: Yes, yes. It's difficult. Not so much because the children are really any different. It's difficult because of the publicity that surrounds the area. And you don't believe that we believe you're smart.
Jones: But sometimes, there's no denying we're smart.
Newman: After school, day one. Me and LeAlan head downtown with our tape recorders.
(Sound of bus)
Jones: On the bus, some one tells us that there are professional basketball players staying at the Hyatt Regency. So, being top notch reporters, we head to the hotel to check it out.
(Hotel lobby music)
Jones: You hear the nice music they're playing?
Newman: Yeah.
Jones: A few minutes later, we scammed our way up to the 20th floor. That's where we found Dale Ellis -- a guard with the San Antonio Spurs. He let us interview him in his room.
Jones: Yeah, I'm from Ida B. Wells -- what part of the United States are you from?
Ellis: Atlanta -- actually Marietta I'm 29 minutes north of Atlanta.
Jones: I know you played for the Sonics and you won the three point contest. What are some of your greatest achievements in life?
Ellis: Well, the biggest achievement, I think, is just being here for one.
Jones: We chilled out with Dale for about fifteen, twenty minutes. It was cool.
Ellis: Math was always my favorite subject. It was always my favorite subject.
Jones: Thank you. Can I have your autograph?
(Everyone laughs.)
Jones (whispering): Goddamn. That was Dale Ellis man. That was Dale Ellis, man!!
Newman: Dale Ellis, thank you.
Jones: Dale Ellis from the San Antonio Spurs.
(Downtown Chicago street sounds.)
Jones: After we finished with Dale Ellis, Lloyd and I figured we did enough for our first day as reporters.
Jones: Man, I'm tired.
Newman: Who ain't tired? I think I'm about to have a back-stroke carrying this stuff on my back!
Jones: Okay, I'll talk to you guys later. I'm out.
(Tape recorder clicks off .)
(Fade up on sound inside LeAlan's house.)
Jones: My house, day two.
Newman: LeAlan lives just a block away from me in an old house on Oakwood Boulevard. There are three houses attached to the side of his.
Jones: One of them's burned, and two of 'em just abandoned. And one of them, it leans over and keeps moving our house over to the side. When it get cold outside, it get cold in here. When it rain, the rain coming in. Whatever nature do, this house do. I'm in my front room now. How you doin', Toochie?
June Jones (Mom): Okay.
Jones: That's my mother. Everyone call her "Toochie."
Jones: Say hello, Jeri.
JERI: Hello.
Jones: My little sister, Jeri. I'm walking up the stairs.
Newman: LeAlan's grandma and grandpa live on the second floor of the house up a rickety flight of steps.
Jones: Listen. (Shakes creaky banister.) That shows you how rickety they are.
Jones: My grand mother moved into this house in 1937. Her name is June Marie Jones. I interviewed her in her room.
Jones: This is still day two. It's 12:06. Hello.
June Jones (Grandma): Hello.
(Laughs.)
Jones: What we gonna talk about?
Grandma: We gonna talk about the neighborhood.
Jones: How it changed and everything. How do you think it changed?
Grandma: For the worse. When we first came in the area there were no projects, there were all homes. And at one time we had nice hotels where different movie stars would come in and stay.
Jones: When you start seeing a major change in the neighborhood?
Grandma: It wasn't all of a sudden. It happened gradually: day by day, year by year. You could see the change when people would move out, or maybe the original owner would pass and their families didn't want the building, and they would just go down.
Jones: My grandma raised eight kids in this house. Her two oldest boys died. Now she has six kids.
Grandma: I have three boys and three girls. They all spoiled rotten. And so are the grandchildren, and especially you.
Jones: Get you!
(They laugh.)
Jones: What type of child was I when I was little? I was a whining child?
Grandma: No, you was a nice little red headed boy with the blue eyes.
Jones: I had blue eyes or brown?
Grandma: They was blue. They were lighter when you were young. And your hair was lighter. And it would turn white in the summer and darker in the fall.
Jones: Well how was I named?
Grandma: You got your name from your two oldest uncles. Oldest boy's name was Alan, and the second boy was Eric Lee, and your mother made your name out of the two names.
Jones: Why she didn't name me no common name? Why she have to name me a sentimental name?
Grandma: Because you're different. Your name is different and you're different.
Jones: My name is LeAlan Marvin Jones.
Grandma: And she gave you the "Marvin" for Marvin Gaye because she liked to hear him sing.
Jones: My name is sentimental.
Grandma: Yeah, your name is special and you're a special person, too.
Jones: Compared to other people who live in this neighborhood, my grandma says she had it easy.
Grandma: I think I been blessed, because things could have been a whole lot worse than they have been.
Jones: But she has had plenty of troubles -- the kinds of things you see in every family around here. My grandmother had one son who was murdered. She has another son who's addicted to drugs and is in and out of jail. Her grandson, my cousin Jermaine, came down with leukemia when he was six. He was cured, but the medication left him learning disabled . It upset his mother so much that she started drinking. Now he lives here with my grandmother -- sleeps in her bed.
Jones: How old are you?
Jermaine: I'm eleven. I'll be twelve this year.
Jones: What do you think about your mother?
Jermaine: She okay.
Jones: You love her?
Jermaine: Yeah. When she not drinking I love her. If she start drinking, I don't.
Jones: Me, my mother and my little sister all stay downstairs in the front room. I sleep on the couch. My mother and sister sleep on a mattress on the floor. Even though my mother lives with us, my grandma also has custody of me and my sisters, because of my mother's mental illness. This is my mother, Toochie.
Mom: I been on medication, off and on, since 1977.
Jones: She's okay now, but she's had a lot of problems in the past. It's upsetting to see her when she sick.
Mom: One time, I had went downstairs, and it's a long story, but I started seeing shadows on the back porch when I used to look out the window at night. And it looked like Ronald Reagan, and he was talking to my grandmother. And I was hearing voices. And the voices told me to get butt naked. I had did that before, too -- taking my clothes off.
Jones: What type voice are these? Are they a man voice, or a female voice, or just a voice?
Mom: Just a regular little voice up there.
Jones: Who is my father?
Mom: Your father is a fellow named Toby Flipper. He say he know you exist. He seen you when you was about two. And I ain't seen him since.
Jones: What do you think happened to him?
Mom: He probably dead.
Jones: Thank you.
Mom: Okay.
(Tape recorder clicks off.)
(Street sounds)
Jones: Lloyd lives about two blocks from my house in the Ida B. Wells Projects. The Ida Bees are made up of about 3,000 units. Most of them are low-rise houses. A lot of them are in miserable condition.
Newman: Now we walking in the Ida B. Wells. Which is 50% houses are boarded up. Now we're going into my house. We're knocking on the door.
(Sound of knocking.)
Kicking on the door.
(Sound of kicking.)
I hope she hurry up and open it.
(Door opens up.)
Now we walking into my house.
(Sound of loud music played on the stereo at Lloyd's house.)
Jones: Lloyd house is kind of messed up. There's lots of roaches creeping around. The toilet's been stopped up off and on for years. The place is always noisy. Lloyd's mother died two years ago from drinking. His father is also an alcoholic. So Lloyd's two older sisters have been bringing him up since then. Lloyd's sister Sophia was the closest to their mother.
Newman: How did you react to it when you heard that she died?
Sophia: I was very upset. I just thought my life wasn't worth living. I wanted to die, too. I just thought we wasn't going to make it without her. But I see that we made it, and I'm very proud of us.
Newman: Do you think it's hard bringing us up at the age of twenty?
Sophia: Well, I'll be twenty this year -- I'm nineteen. But sometimes you all give us a tough time, but I love having you all as my brothers and sisters.
Jones: All together there are four boys and three girls living in the house. Lloyd's sister is bringing them all up on a $500 a month welfare check. It isn't easy.
Chill: My name is Michael Murray.
Lloyd's brother: His name is "Chilly Mac." He's at the liquor store.
Jones: Almost every day, Lloyd's father visits the house. His name is Michael Murray, but everyone calls him "Chill."
Chill: They gave me that name. I used to shoot pool, I used to hustle -- any kind of way I could get some money.
Jones: When he come over, he's almost always drunk. And the kids make fun of him. Like today -- they asking him to spell "food."
Sister's Friend: Spell "food."
Chill: L-O-O-F . . . L-O-O-F.
Jones: L-O-O-F?
Sister's Friend: F-O-O-D.
Sophia: Wait -- what did you spell? We said spell "food." What you eat.
Chill: Oh, food. What you eat?
Sister's Friend: Yeah, buddy boy, spell food.
Chill: L-O-O-F?
Newman: I asked my father, Chill, what his best memories of my mother are.
Chill: Me and her have fun, putting our feet in the water together. We were sober then -- but once we started getting high, them memories gone. They gone.
Newman: Why are you drinking?
Chill: I don't understand why I'm drinking.
Newman: Do you think you going to stop?
Chill: Yeah, I'm going to rehab, and take care of myself.
Newman: What do you drink?
Chill: I drink about two or three pints of wine a day. But it ain't helping me, it's only killing me. Don't people understand it’s destroying you?
Newman: If it's destroying you, why do you still drink?
Chill: That's why I got to go into rehab, because I don't want to destroy my family. I want my family.
Newman: Do you think you've been a good father?
Chill: Yes, I have. To the best capability I could.
Newman: I have no further questions.
(Tape recorder clicks off.)
(Fade up on sound of card game.)
Jones: Every Saturday evening at Lloyd's house, a bunch of people comes over to play cards -- mostly Lloyd's sisters’ friends. Usually the game lasts all night. I left at about 11:30 or 12:00.
(Music, outside sounds.)
Jones: I met up with Lloyd the next morning.
Jones: How the card game go last night?
Newman: I won all the money! It was 80 dollars!
Jones: Jeepers, how you be winning all the time?
Newman: I don't cheat, which everybody think I do. But I'm hooked now -- once I start I can't stop.
Jones: Man, what you want for breakfast -- since you buying?
Newman: I took LeAlan to Johnson's restaurant on 39th Street for breakfast.
Waiter: Alright what else?
Jones: Since Lloyd had $80, we ordered everything on the menu.
Jones: Then with the omelet I want the hash browns and grits.
Waiter: Okay, now what about this French toast?
Newman: I want the French toast with sausages.
Jones: And I want the juice.
Waiter: Hold on a minute, just hold on.
(Restaurant sounds fade out into outdoors sounds.)
Jones: Man, that was one good breakfast.
Newman: We just now got through eating at Johnson's Restaurant.
Jones: I ate twelve French toasts, two omelets.
Newman: LeAlan ate the whole store up!
Jones: Ooh man, I could eat again. My stomach starting to get hungry.
Newman: That's all we do is eat, man, to tell the truth ain't it -- eat and talk. Let's get on the bus man.
(Music)
Jones: We take bus rides whenever Lloyd wins playing cards, or if either one of us gets a little money.
Newman: Just ride to the end of the line.
Jones: Take a break from everyday life in the ghetto.
Newman: There go the bus.
Jones: Yeah. Let's go, let's go, let's go! Let's go!
Newman: Hold that bus! Hold the bus! Hold that bus, please!
(Sound of getting on bus and paying fare.)
Jones: On the bus. We just sit at the back, look out the window, and trip out.
Jones: What's your favorite food -- breakfast food, lunch food or dinner?
Newman: Dinner food.
Jones: This is what I be doing G. .
(Refrain of music washes away conversation.)
Jones: When we on the bus we talk about anything and everything.
Jones: I don't see how them Chinese people go to school seven days out of a week.
Jones: Man, there's a couple of billion oriental people.
Newman: "Oriental." Don't you spell that "O-R-I-E-N-T-A-L?"
Jones: Think that's right.
Newman: 'Cause that's the name of the Ramen Noodle -- you know the noodles that we be eating?
Jones: Yeah, I love them. Oriental noodles -- I be tearing them off when I be hungry.
(Refrain of music washes away conversation.)
Jones: When a nice looking female gets on the bus, we like to let her know we there.
Jones: Hey girl, he say he like you. He say you attractive. He say it's just that animal magnetism that just attracts him. Man, he say he love you.
Newman: Uh uh -- I just love you!
(Boys laugh.)
Jones: Oh God. Oh God.
(Laughter)
(Refrain of music washes away conversation.)
Jones: We just like to act the fool on the bus. Get some attention.
(Sound of bus horn honking.)
Jones: We almost hit a car. Whew, that car came out we almost hit it. I think we did. No, we didn't.
Newman: If we would have had an accident, you think we would have gotten hurt?
LeAlan: I would have sued -- "My neck hurt. I can't move. Man I can't move my neck."
(Boys laugh.)
"My nose broke ohh."
Newman: Would you rather have a rubber nose or a plastic nose? I ain't talking about the kind like Michael Jackson.
Jones: A rubber nose, because if I have a fight they hit me it just bounce right off and hit them in they face.
(Refrain of music washes away conversation and then fades out.)
(Sound of telephone conversation.)
Jones: When I got home from our bus ride on Sunday afternoon, I found out that in the morning, while we were eating breakfast, my cousin Tony got jumped by one of the gangs in the neighborhood. They beat him up so bad they put him in the hospital. He wouldn't let me interview him, but I recorded him while he told his friend on the phone what happened.
TONY: I'm out homes -- I'm breathing and everything. I can hear everything. But I ain't woke.
Jones: Tony's saying that they beat him up until they knocked him unconscious. Then they hit him a couple more times in the mouth. That woke him up, and he got away. He says it's just a blessing that he made it back home.
TONY: It's just a blessing that I made it back home.
(Street sounds.)
Jones: This is where the drive by took place last year, where the El Rukns shot down some folks right in this area where we walking now.
Newman: Gangs and violence are just a way of life in this neighborhood.
Jones: And now we see the Fort, where the Fort used to stand.
Jones: Just a block from my house is a big vacant lot -- that's where the Fort used to be. An old movie theater that was the headquarters of the El Rukns street gang until the city tore it down.
Jones: We standing on the grounds now. You still see the caution police barrier.
Jones: We’re just in eighth grade, but a lot of the kids we grew up with already joined the gangs. When we were walking around the neighborhood, we spied our friend Gary, selling drugs.
Jones: Gary! Slow up, man!
Newman: LeAlan asked him what he thought he was going to be doing in ten years, since he already dropped out of school.
GARY: I ain't gonna be alive ten years, because selling drugs and shit they gonna pop my ass.
Newman: He says he won't be alive in ten years, because with his selling drugs, someone's gonna shoot him before that.
Jones: I don't know why some kids just give up hope, and others -- like me and Lloyd -- hold on. Maybe its just that both me and Lloyd have at least one strong person in our families to watch over us.
Newman: But, no matter what the situation, every kid who lives in this neighborhood has to grow up fast.
Jones: When I was nine, I knew where drugs came from. When I was ten I seen my first automatic weapon -- a Glock Nine -- two clips.
Newman: I seen all kinds of guns -- .44, .22, Techs. I saw rifles.
Jones: Mac 10, Mac 11.
Newman: Living around here. You hear shooting all the time.
Jones: Like Vietnam sometimes. You might hear "Booka Booka." Silent. I remember one time I was over at my Auntie house spending the night. We playin' Super Nintendo. I hear this lady: "I heard you been looking for me, nigger." Then she just -- Boom Boom Boom Boom. She let off about eight shots. Then I heard the other gun fire off, and we were just still there playing there like nothing happened.
And then Vietnam, them people came back crazy. I live in Vietnam, so what you think I'm gonna be if I live in it and they just went and visited.
Living around here -- it's depressing. Man, it's depressing.
(Music)
It's not a normal childhood by any means.
(Sound of the boys walking outside.)
Jones: Now we walking towards the lake front.
Jones: Sometimes, when we bored, nothing else to do, we get on the bridge which goes over Lake Shore Drive, and we drop rocks on the cars below -- try to crack they windshields. And then run.
Newman: Mini-vans are one of our favorite targets.
Jones: That's a brother in there. Hit the white blazer. The white blazer. Throw it now!
(Sound of the boys running away.)
Jones: You just driving your car and -- Poom! .We just hit the car. I don't care about them people. Most of them going to the suburbs.
Newman: You be bored you do anything.
Jones: Just to have some fun. Lloyd, come on, let's stop running. All I know is I bust your windshield and you got an insurance claim -- I don't care about them people. Boy you didn't think I was going to do it, did you?
Jones: It definitely ain’t easy growing up in the ghetto. So far me and Lloyd are okay. But it's always tough to stay out of trouble in this environment. The poverty, the drugs, the pressures, the tragedies -- it gets to people.
Newman: You never who’s gonna get into trouble, or when they just gonna give up. Like LeAlan's sister Janell.
(Sound of TV at LeAlan's house.)
Newman: We back at LeAlan's house.
Jones: My sister back here asleep in her room. What time you got in this morning? You stupid! When the last time you been to school?
Jones: My older sister, Janell. When she was my age, thirteen, she was an honor student. She won the spelling bee. She was the salutatorian of her class. Then when she hit fourteen, she started buggin' out. Hanging around with the wrong crowd. Staying out all night. Stopped going to school.
Newman: The week before we did our recording, Janell almost died. She drank too much, and had to be rushed to the hospital.
Jones: Can I interview you? Janell, tell me about yourself.
Janell: Well, I'm very energetic. I like to have a lot of fun.
Jones: Like to drink a lot.
Janell: No, I don't.
Jones: Yes, you do. You smoke marijuana?
Janell: No, I don't.
Jones: Yes, you do -- tell the truth!
Janell: No, I don’t.
Jones: You're seventeen.
Janell: Yes.
Jones: Have a child.
Janell: Yes.
Jones: How old were you when you had this child?
Janell: Fifteen.
Jones: How many close friends of yours have got killed through the years?
Janell: I don't know. I can't count all of them. Been a lot though.
Jones: You think it's around fifty?
Janell: I don't think it's that many.
Jones: About thirty or forty?
Janell: Probably somewhere in that area. Maybe a little less than thirty.
Jones: Do you know who killed or murdered these people?
Janell: I know who killed some of them.
Jones: Like who?
Janell: Like Veal.
Jones: Who killed him?
Janell: I ain't gonna tell you who killed Veal.
Jones: Who else?
Janell: I know who killed Slick.
Jones: Who?
Janell: I don't want to tell you that either.
Jones: Who else?
Janell: Cheesy.
Jones: Who killed him?
Janell: I ain't gonna tell you that either.
Jones: Thank you.
(Sound of radio playing in grandmother's room.)
Jones: My grandma sleeps across the hall from my sister, where she keeps an eye on Janell and all the rest of us. She's been through a lot in this house. She spent a lot of years worrying about her children, and now she has to worry about her grandkids. But she's a strong woman.
Sometimes I think about what might happen to the family if my grandmother dies. A lot of times I’ve had dreams that she died -- and when I wake up, I run upstairs to make sure that she's still there. I get onto the bed with her and grandfather, and talk about all kinds of things. Like what my granddad was like before he had all his strokes.
Grandma: He was wild, liked to stay out in the street all the time.
Jones: He over there batting his eyes, acting like he sleeping. I see those eyes going, trying to find out what you thought about him.
Grandma: He go to work all day, and stay out in the street all night
Jones: Didn't he work at the cow company?
Grandma: Stock yards, he worked at the stock yards as a lugger -- he would carry the cows on his back.
Jones: A cow weigh 1500 pounds!
Grandma: He lug it. He’d carry half of it and put it up on the hook.
Jones: How you carry them cows, granddad? How you didn't get squashed?
Granddad: Carry the half of the cow.
Jones: How?
Granddad: On your back.
Jones: That's why we all got strong backbones, huh?
Granddad: Yup.
Jones: My grandmother says she gets her strength to carry on, her wisdom, from the Bible. She loves gospel music. And of all the song she knows, the one she loves the most is called "One day at a time."
Jones: Could you please sing that song for us?
Grandma: With my voice all messed up?
Jones: Do it. One, two, three . . .
Grandma (sings): Do you remember when you walked among men? Well Jesus you know, if you lookin' below, it's worse now than then. They're pushing and shoving, they're crowding my mind. Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time. One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that's all I'm asking of you. So help me today, show me the way, one day at a time.
Jones: She was hoarse but she still can blow. Thank you.
(Tape recorder clicks off .)
(Music)
Jones: This is LeAlan Jones.
Newman: And Lloyd Newman.
Jones: Peace out.
Newman: Peace out. No good bye. A salaam aleikum.
Jones: A salaam aleikum.
Newman: See ya'.
Jones: And wouldn't want to be ya'.
Newman: Peace out, I'm outta here.
Jones: Peace out.
LeAlan Jones of Ghetto Life 101 Grows Up
May 8, 2009, WBEZ Chicago, Chicago Public Radio
It was more than 16 years ago that we were brought into the world of teenagers LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman. The boys captured on tape their daily living in the now-gone Ida B. Wells housing projects on Chicago’s South Side. LeAlan and Lloyd, along with famed radio producer David Isay, produced Ghetto Life 101. The project became one of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history, winning dozens of major awards. LeAlan is now 30 years old, and working as a freelance radio producer. Today, on his 30th birthday, he shares his thoughts about the state of violence in Chicago’s South Side.
Link to Listen: http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=34067