This Practice, Banned in Most of the World,
is Common in the United States
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the
way it treats its children," Nelson Mandela once said. If that's the
case, the United States has much soul-searching to do. The United States
is the only country in the world that regularly applies life without
parole for offenses committed before the age of 18. More than 2,500
imprisoned Americans are slated to spend the rest of their lives behind
bars for crimes they committed as kids.
A new Amnesty International report
calls for scrapping the sentence of life without parole for juvenile
offenders. It underscores the need for the justice system to take into
account these offenders' young age, their still-developing cognitive
abilities, and their potential for rehabilitation.
In May 2010, the Supreme Court took a positive step. In its Graham v. Florida
ruling, the court said that a sentence of life without parole for a
non-homicidal crime committed by a minor constitutes "cruel and unusual"
punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court
noted that children possess diminished culpability because "developments
in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental
differences between juvenile and adult minds."
The idea of diminished culpability is evident in the case of Christi
Cheramie, a Louisiana prisoner we highlighted in our report. In 1994
Cheramie, a psychologically unstable girl who had suffered years of
sexual abuse, accompanied her teenage boyfriend Gene Mayeux to the home
of his great-aunt, Mildred Turnage, to steal money. Mayeux stabbed his
great aunt to death and was eventually arrested. Cheramie cooperated
with police but after repeated questioning was also arrested and charged
with first-degree murder.
At that time, Louisiana and U.S. law allowed the death penalty for
convicted murderers aged 16 or over at the time of the crime, in
violation of international law. After the prosecution decided to pursue
the death penalty against Cheramie, then 16, she was transferred to
adult criminal court for trial without a hearing to consider factors
that would support keeping her case in juvenile court, such as her young
age, her history of mental health issues, and her amenability to
rehabilitation.
Facing the death penalty, Cheramie pled guilty to a reduced charge of
second-degree murder without comprehending that she was waiving her
right to a trial by jury and to a direct appeal of her conviction or
sentence. The judge accepted her plea and imposed the mandatory sentence
for a second-degree murder: life imprisonment without the possibility
of parole.
Now 33, Cheramie has spent half her life in prison. She is, by many
accounts, a model prisoner who has obtained her high school equivalency
diploma and a degree in agricultural studies, completing nearly all the
educational and vocational programs available to her. She has expressed
remorse for her involvement in the murder. Her lawyers filed a petition
for clemency with the Louisiana Board of Pardons in November.
Without question, young people should be held accountable for their
actions. But the justice system must take into account an offender's
age, diminished culpability, and capacity for change. To deny even the
possibility of release to a juvenile offender is incompatible with the
basic principles of juvenile justice and the foundation of a fair and
compassionate justice system. The UN Human Rights committee, the UN
Committee Against Torture, and Amnesty International are among the
international groups calling for an end to the practice of sentencing
juveniles to life without parole.
America is one of only two countries that haven't ratified the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force more
than two decades ago and prohibits the imposition of life without parole
for crimes committed before the age of 18. (The other is Somalia.)
Since the Obama administration has indicated to the UN Human Rights
Council that it supports the goals of the convention and its
ratification by the United States, the White House and Congress should
work to bring about ratification — without reservations or limits — as
soon as possible.
In the meantime, authorities in every state should immediately
address the cases of people who are already serving life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were
children.
© 2012 Other Words
