Hard to Believe: 73 U.S. Kids Sentenced to Life Without Parole at 14 or Younger, and All Are Black

[depakid]

The U.S. is the only country in the world that barbarically sentences juveniles to life without parole. And race is a huge factor. Will the Supreme Court even consider it?

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases that could have major implications for the way juvenile offenders are treated in our criminal justice system. Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida both involve men who are serving life without the possibility of parole for crimes they were convicted of as teenagers -- crimes in which no one was killed.

Joe Sullivan was only 13 years old when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 72-year-old woman in her Pensacola, Fla., home, hours after he and a group of older teenagers robbed her house. Sullivan, who reportedly suffers from mental disabilities, insisted that, while he participated in the robbery, he did not commit the rape. But his co-defendants, 15-year-old Michael Gulley and 17-year-old Nathan McCants, 17 pinned the crime on him. Both were tried as juveniles; Sullivan was tried as an adult.

Sullivan is African American, a fact that was stressed repeatedly at trial. The victim, Lena Bruner, testified that her assailant was "a colored boy" with "kinky hair" -- "he was quite black, and he was small," she said. Bruner admitted that she "did not see him full in the face," but she remembered him saying, "If you can't identify me, I may not have to kill you."

According to the New York Times, "at his trial, Mr. Sullivan was made to say those words several times." ("'It's been six months,' the woman said on the witness stand. 'It's hard, but it does sound similar.' ")

Sullivan had shabby representation -- his lawyer didn't bother making an opening statement and later lost his license to practice in Florida -- and his one-day trial should have cast serious doubts about his guilt. "The only physical evidence was a fingerprint lifted from a plaque in the bedroom, which could have been made during the burglary," wrote Amy Bach in Slate last week. "The clothing and other evidence have been destroyed and couldn't be tested for DNA." Nevertheless, he was found guilty, and at 14, Sullivan became the youngest person in the country to be sentenced to life without parole.

"I'm going to send him away for as long as I can," the judge said.

Today, Sullivan is one of some 109 prisoners in the country whose non-homicide crimes have condemned them to leave prison only in a coffin. No fewer than 76 of those prisoners are behind bars in Florida. (Until last month there were 77, but 29-year-old Travis Underhill, sentenced to life in 1999 for armed robbery, "collapsed while playing basketball at a Palm Beach County prison on Oct. 8 and died," according to the Miami Herald.) The vast majority -- 84 percent, in Florida -- are African American. On a national level, according to Human Rights Watch, African American youths are serving life without parole at a rate of about 10 times that of white youths.

More: http://www.alternet.org/rights/143776/hard_to_believe%3A_73_u.s._kids_sentenced_to_life_without_parole_at_14_or_younger%2C_and_all_are_black

[Divine Discontent]

1. I find it hard to believe there's not a 14 yr old white/asian/latino kid out there that didn't do

some of the same crimes that these black criminals did, and somehow they're not sentenced to life. So, how is it that this all isn't thrown out, so to speak? Racism, I understand. But, really, it makes you wonder - 73? Really? Wow. The odds that no other races are represented makes it scream off the page.

[gaspee]

2. What a coincidence!

That they're all black!

:sarcasm:

Aren't most of the school shooters white? Non of them got life?

[NutmegYankee]

3. The most infamous school shooters were dead.

The other infamous case If I recall correctly had a shooter of age 8.

[madokie]

4. Reading that makes my heart ache

The things we think we are as a country and the things we are as a country is a big big divide.

I hope that our President will/can usher in some changes with the fact of his being there.

[mdmc]

5. yesyes

[ThatsMyBarack]

16. Exactly!

:cry:

[malaise]

6. I don't find it hard to believe

On the contrary :shrug:

[Lyric]

7. Not at all hard to believe.

And the stats for capital punishment are horrific as well. God help you in a capital case if you're a young black man, because our "justice" system is basically a calmer, formal version of a lynch mob at this point.

Our society is racist, barbaric, and sickeningly fixated on punishment. Yesterday, someone told me that "a few innocent people" dying via the flawed American death penalty was "a necessary sacrifice" in order to insure that "monsters like Muhammad" are executed, because "justice must be served."

I swear to God, I almost threw up. This person has NO concept of justice--none at all. How can a society that forgives the murder of the innocent in order to more fully-pursue the murder of the guilty EVER claim to be seeking "justice?" WHY do none of these people understand that even ONE innocent person's death removes all "justice" forever, because then WE are guilty of the exact same crime that we're executing "guilty" people for? I tried to explain this, and it was brushed aside.

I am two steps from truly believing that people who support the death penalty are flat-out evil inside--especially Democrats who should know better. They've heard this argument, and yet, they choose to ignore it. They are content to murder the innocent along with the guilty, and thus BECOME guilty themselves. By their own twisted logic, THEY should be executed too.

[pimpbot]

12. So what should have happened to Muhammad?

Locked up for the rest of his life? Wasting thousands of dollars feeding and providing free health care for him? I mean, he only sat in his car trunk sniping random innocent people for a couple weeks. Brainwashed a kid to help him execute his plan. Sorry, he made his choice, and suffered the consequences.

[stray cat]

8. I bet the real commonality is all were relatively poor with overworked public defenders

aren't they also mostly all from Florida?

[Heywood J]

13. Wasn't Florida also the state that bragged when their chair

was setting people on fire? I don't understand why people live there, when it seems that each day they're at risk from the state in some way or another.

After the Medina execution, then Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth commented, "People who wish to commit murder, they'd better not do it in the state of Florida because we may have a problem with the electric chair." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Sparky#Florida">source)

[ipaint]

22. It's primarily a service economy with low paying jobs and minimal worker rights.

Most poorer people have no choice but to stay. You need quite a bit of money to move to a higher paying/higher standard of living state.

The state is as racist as they come. We have an affluent retired and vacationing population which comes here from around the country to get waited on. You can pretty much follow the railroad tracks all the way up the east coast with the poor blacks and minorities on the west side and the poor white just east of the tracks, white and minority working class a bit farther east. The closer you get to the intercoastal the nicer the neighborhoods are.
The intercoastal is lined on both sides with predominately white well off retiree property/landowners. The barrier islands are wealthy with a few pockets of workers living among them for their convenience.

Once you get 5 to 7 miles inland you get to sprawling cookie cutter developments with homes about 2 feet apart containing middle and upper middle class families. Not a whole lot of minorities. The wealthier developments have poor communities near them to provide them with the service workers they need to do their lawns, clean their toilets and wait on them in stores and restaurants.

This is south florida and some of the treasure coast.


I often wonder what it will look like once we run out of retirees.

[rug]

9. Kick. This is important.

[bananas]

10. k&r nt

[G_j]

11. not hard to believe

but heartbreaking

[lonestarnot]

14. What do you mean hard to believe! Long-term profitability!

[EFerrari]

15. Shame.

ETA: At fourteen, your brain isn't even close to maturing.

[Forkboy]

17. Not hard to believe at all.

K&R

[Edweird]

18. Police: Boy, 14, Confesses To WPB Gang Rape

A 14-year-old boy has confessed to being among the masked teens who gang-raped a woman at gunpoint and assaulted her son in their West Palm Beach home, police said.
Lawson was linked to the crime after police said they matched DNA evidence found on a condom in the victim's home to the teen.

Lawson has been charged with two counts of armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators along with two counts of armed home invasion

"This was a very horrific crime. Even our investigators who've been here 25 years are visibly shaken," said Ted White of the West Palm Beach Police Department.

According to police reports, the mother was then raped and beaten by the 10 teens.

Police said the victim's preteen son had a plate smashed over his head and numerous household liquids poured into his eyes. Investigators said the boy was also forced at gunpoint to participate in the sexual assault.

The invaders eventually fled the scene after more than 20 minutes inside of the victim's home, police told WPBF.

Police said the attackers attempted to remove DNA evidence with household cleaning agents.

Following the attack, police said the woman and her son walked a mile to the hospital.

http://www.wpbf.com/news/13616442/detail.html

Three of them have gotten life sentences.
Mr. Lawson will be sentenced in December.
Maybe you could step in and foster the poor misunderstood dear in your home.

[vadawg]

19. good point, a lot of these poor kids that people are defending did the worst crimes imaginable

im not sure that you would want the kid who rapes or murders someone living next door to you with access to your kids... Some may be salvageable but a lot of them are not worth the effort..

[Raineyb]

24. You know damn well that's not the point.

Lots of white kids commit the "worse crimes imaginable" but it's only black kids in this country who are deemed to be "not worth the effort." Somehow white kids, who are less likely to be targeted by kids, less likely to be arrested when they have committed crimes, less likely to go to trial and certainly less likely to be sentenced to life without parole are never deemed to be "not worth the effort"

Yet somehow we're supposed to think it's coincidence.

Then again I don't know why I bother as YOU are certainly not worth the effort.

[Atticus]

20. The next time some wingnut starts that "racism is a thing of the past" bullshit,

I intend to smack 'em right upside the head with that statistic. As an American who happens to have been born Caucasian, I am ashamed!

[Cali_Democrat]

21. Thank you so much for this article. n/t

[shondradawson]

23. I remember in junior high school watching a documentary

on teenage murderers. At that age, a juvenile detention center was a world away from anything or anyone I knew.

It explores the lives of three teenage boys:

a) a fourteen year old who had stabbed to death his father, mother, and younger brother in the home. After which, he took the family car and drove head on into another car on the road. His suicide attempt was botched, but it managed to kill the mother and the child in the car he intentionally hit.

b) a thirteen year old boy and a friend burglarized and bludgeoned an old woman to death.

c) an eleven year old boy stole a gun, and shot and killed his friend to see what would happen...what happened is his friend died.

None of these boys interviewed showed any remorse for their killings. They only seemed to know they had done something wrong because they were convicted and locked away for it. Curiously enough, it was the brutality of their crimes and their lack of remorse that resulted in none of them being put into juvenile correction facilities, but mental rehabilitation programs. Which, of course, made them all eligible for release in the early 90's...

None of these boys were called monsters, animals, or savages. None of these boys were considered beyond redemption. None of these boys were given life sentences for their crimes, or even lengthy sentences, never mind the death penalty.

What all these boys were was white.

There is an earlier post of a Florida rape/murder case involving teenagers...I wonder if they were white.

I have to wonder because...well, it makes a difference.

Another post mentioned the school murders, all done by white children. I have to wonder, had they been alive to be tried for their crimes, how the press would have treated the "horrific, bloodthirsty slaughters, etc.," or would they have become "tragic cries and signs for help from a distressing and desperate coming of age, etc.,"

I have to wonder....(sigh)

[redqueen]

25. Very well put.

*sigh* indeed.