“He knew better.”
“She knows right from wrong.”
“If a kid does the crime, he gotta do the time.”
If I had a dollar for every time I heard these words in response to serious juvenile crimes, I would be sipping on a Mai Tai on a sandy beach in Montego Bay.
These are typical but uninformed reactions to kids committing murder or other serious crimes. One has to patiently explain the difference – psychologically, emotionally and physically – between children and adults. There’s a hefty body of research from professionals who study and understand brain development and behavior that backs up this claim.
So when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the summer of 2012 that it is unconstitutional to impose a mandatory life-without-parole sentence on someone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the crime, I gave a sigh of relief. The 5-4 decision by the high court in Miller v. Alabama struck down all statutes that require a child to be sentenced to literally die in prison.
The ruling affects hundreds of individuals whose age and other mitigating factors were not taken into account at the time of their sentencing. In short, it means that kids can’t be given life without the possibility of parole. It also means that the states have to go back and review those cases and re-assess the punishment in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
In Missouri, we waited with bated breath for two years to see how the courts would deal with the Miller cases that require re-sentencing hearings. Last week, we got the ugly results.
Missouri’s first case involved Ledale Nathan, who was 16 at the time of his brutal crimes. The outcome of the re-sentencing was mind-boggling to me.
Although the jury downgraded his charge from first degree to second degree murder, Nathan, now 21 years old, faces eight consecutive life sentences, plus 120 years and 11 concurrent life sentences. Essentially, he will die in prison – no different from the previous sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Nathan wasn’t even the shooter.
Something is wrong with this picture. Either the court doesn’t understand the Miller ruling, or people are stuck on revenge and not rehabilitation of youth – or both.
The Supreme Court case involved 14-year-old Evan Miller and his 16-year-old friend who beat a neighbor to death with a baseball bat, stole his baseball cards and set his trailer afire. The two teens were summarily tried as adults.
Evan and his friend were rural white kids, but this scenario has played out over and over again for years in urban cities with black and brown children.
We know, as Justice Elena Kagan articulated in the majority decision, that a child is incapable of truly understanding risks and consequences. We know conclusively that the part of the brain that affects reason and judgment is not fully developed until the early twenties. Further, if children come out of an environment where they have been exposed to levels of violence and abuse, that must also be taken into consideration.
Miller v. Alabama validated the years of work done by child advocates, juvenile justice practitioners and medical professionals on this particular issue. It is the same rationale we used in Roper v. Simmons that made it unconstitutional to execute those who were juveniles at the time of their crimes.
It appears that our work is far from over.
