180 California teens locked up for life; 2,225 in U.S.

CALIFORNIA
180 teen killers locked up for life, report says
Change proposed to allow paroles
- Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005

California has 180 prisoners serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for murders committed when they were 16 or 17, and has imposed a disproportionate number of those sentences on African American youths, human rights groups reported Wednesday.

The figure was contained in a study by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that found that 2,225 inmates in the United States were serving life-without-parole terms for crimes committed when they were under 18. About one-sixth were under 15, and six of the inmates were only 13, all of those in states outside California, the report said.

Only three other nations -- Tanzania, South Africa and Israel -- sentence juveniles to life without parole, and they have a total of 12 such prisoners combined, the report said.

"The United States should be ashamed that it allows kids young enough to have stuffed animals on their beds to spend the rest of their lives in prison," said Amnesty International's Samer Rabadi. "California prosecutors, federal judges and lawmakers must take youth and maturity into account when determining culpability for a crime."

The groups called on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the sentences of California's 180 inmates sentenced to life with the possibility of parole as minors, so they would be considered for release after 25 years in prison. Schwarzenegger's office quickly rejected the idea.

The governor "would not consider a blanket commutation for all inmates that fall into this category," said spokeswoman Julie Soderlund. She also said Schwarzenegger's "No. 1 priority is protecting public safety" and that he believes in upholding "the criminal justice system and decisions made by juries and the courts."

State Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, joined the groups at Wednesday's news conference to propose changing the state law to make juvenile murderers eligible for future parole. Romero will invite legislators, district attorneys and others to a meeting in January to examine the issue, focusing on the reported racial disparities, said spokeswoman Victoria Ballesteros.

The report stated that African Americans aged 16 and 17 in California are sentenced to life without parole at a rate of 4.4 per 100,000, or more than 22 times the rate of white youths. Nationally, the black-white disparity is 10 to 1, and no other state has as large a gap as California's, the study said.

It also said Latinos in California are sentenced to life without parole at 4.5 times the rate of non-Latino white youths.

The study did not examine individual cases to determine whether youths from other racial and ethnic groups were given different sentences for similar crimes, nor did it compare life-without-parole inmates to the makeup of the overall prison population. Census figures from 2000 found that blacks were about six times as likely as whites in California to be in prison or jail.

David LaBahn, executive director of the California District Attorneys Association, said any study of racial disparities in sentencing needs to consider the race of the victims -- who, he said, are overwhelmingly from the same racial or ethnic groups as their killers, particularly in gang cases.

The district attorneys' organization sponsored the 1990 ballot measure that authorized life-without-parole sentences for juveniles in California. The measure, Proposition 115, made 16-year-olds eligible for such sentences after conviction in adult court for murders that would be punishable by death or life without parole at age 18. The law allows the trial judge to decide whether to sentence the youth to life with or without parole.

The law covers first-degree murders with special circumstances that make the crime more serious, such as multiple murder, the murder of a police officer, or murder during a rape, robbery or burglary.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/13/BAG00F7GFI1.DTL&type=printable

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Report Released on Life Sentences for Kids
- By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, October 11, 2005

(10-11) 22:50 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

There are 2,225 people serving life terms in prison without parole for crimes committed as children, most of them in a handful of states where judges don't have the discretion to impose lighter penalties.

A report being released Wednesday by Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch found that a surge in violent crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to tougher sentencing laws and a jump in the number of juveniles sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

Pennsylvania has the most such inmates (332), followed by Louisiana (317), Michigan (306) and Florida (273). All four states have laws making life without parole mandatory for certain crimes and don't allow judges to lighten sentences.

"Kids who commit serious crimes shouldn't go scot-free," said Alison Parker, senior researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "But if they are too young to vote or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars."

The groups say the sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment for criminals who may not be mature enough to grasp the consequences of their actions. They want the United States to abolish the penalty, which is allowed in 43 states but imposed in only a handful of other countries.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that executing juvenile killers was unconstitutional, based in part on international sentiment that youths are less culpable than adults.

Dianne Clements, president of the Houston-based Justice for All, a victims' advocacy group, said taking away life-without-parole sentences would remove a strong deterrent to crime.

"Judges don't legislate, legislative bodies do. They legislate based on the will of the people, and that will says life without parole is an appropriate punishment," she said.

According to the study, which analyzes state and federal data, 93 percent of youth offenders sentenced to life without parole were convicted of murder. Fifty-nine percent had no prior convictions and 16 percent were 15 or under, factors that in states where judges are given flexibility could result in lesser sentences.

In 1990, 2,234 children were convicted of murder, of which 2.9 percent were sentenced to life without parole. By 2000, even though the number of youth killers had dropped to 1,006, life-without-parole sentences had increased to 9 percent of the total.

The report attributed the increase to a spike in youth crime rates that resulted in tougher state sentencing laws that were passed and more vigorously enforced in the 1990s. Pennsylvania was among them, giving its prosecutors the power to file charges against youth offenders in adult court.

William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said the figures show a need to give judges flexibility. He noted that among the 43 states that allow the penalty, the five states that impose it least frequently — Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey, Utah and Vermont — allow discretionary sentencing.

"Untie the hands of state and federal judges and prosecutors," Schulz said. "Give them options other than turning the courts into assembly lines that mass produce mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children."

The states that do not allow life-without-parole sentences for juveniles are Alaska, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Mexico, New York and West Virginia. The District of Columbia also does not allow them.

___

On the Net:

A copy of the report can be found at the following sites:

Justice for All:

http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us1005/

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/clwop/

http://www.jfa.net/

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/10/11/national/a225017D54.DTL&type=printable