http://www.miamiherald.com/431/story/1279473.html
Florida a leader in putting kids in jail for life
By FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com
The latest measure of Florida’s medieval mind set comes in at 77.
Juxtapose that number against the 109 juveniles in all of the United States who have been consigned to prison until death for crimes not involving murder or attempted murder.
Of the 109, 77 are locked up in Florida prisons, according to a study by the Public Interest Law Center at Florida State University.
Florida may skimp on educating children, but when it comes to perpetual incarceration for kiddies, we’re like no place else.
“We’ve far exceeded what goes on in the rest of the nation,” said Paolo Annino, the center’s supervising attorney.
The 50-state study found that 39 states have no juvenile convicts in non-homicide cases serving life without parole. After Florida, with 77, Louisiana is the next-most-draconian state on the law center’s list with 17.
ALONE AMONG NATIONS
If Florida stands alone amid the states in its fervor to lock up juveniles for life, even for nonlethal crimes, then we’re also set off from the rest of the world. Amnesty International, in a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, stated: “Every other country in the world has rejected the practice of giving this sentence to offenders who were under 18 at the time they committed a crime.”
The Supreme Court, during this fall’s term, will hear arguments over whether life sentences for kids convicted of crimes like armed robbery, rape and burglary so violates civilized norms that it constitutes cruel and usual punishment.
In 2005, the court tossed out the death penalty for juveniles, citing “evolving standards of decency.”
Florida, of course, would be the last place to recognize evolving standards of decency in criminal justice. (An evolving standard of decency, in more-civilized locales, would not contemplate the state stashing sex offenders into a homeless camp under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.)
Both of the juvenile life-without-parole appeals up before the court (to be heard simultaneously) are Florida cases: a 13-year-old given life for rape in 1989 and a 16-year-old armed robber sent off for life in 2005.
NOT INTENDED
What is it about Florida? “I don’t think this was intended,” said Professor Annino. “It wasn’t as if Florida lawmakers decided, OK, let’s put all these kids in prison, life without parole, for non-murders. It wasn’t planned or intended as social policy,” he said. “It was more of an accident.”
Back in the early 1990s, several deadly attacks on international tourists in Florida added a sense of urgency to a get-tough-on-juvenile-crime attitude in the Legislature. Juvenile offenders “were threatening the state’s bedrock tourism industry,” the state’s lawyers explained in their Supreme Court brief. Annino said the Legislature streamlined the process to try kids as adults, with adult sentences, with little consideration of the unintended consequences.
Lawmakers surely didn’t envision 13-year-old non-killers trucked off to prison for life, although Florida has two such cases among the 77 prisoners.
But undoing get-tough legislation, no matter how crazy, requires the kind of leadership missing lately among Florida’s risk-averse politicians. So we have kids sent to prison for life and sex offenders living under the Tuttle causeway, all to honor politically intractable laws that no serious criminologists find rational.
It’s what sets Florida apart from the civilized universe.
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On May 6, 2009, a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that will affect all juveniles who have been sentenced to life in prison. The bill, HR 2289 – The Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009, was introduced by by Bobby Scott (D-VA) and John Conyers (D- MI).
There will be a public hearing on this bill on June 9, 2009.
Every testimony including letters, email and faxes will become a part of the public record.
If this bill passes, every child offender that has been given life or life without parole in the country would come up for parole after serving 15 years and then subsequently every 3 years after that.
Please use one of these letter templates:
A sample letter of support for HR 2289
Letter to John Conyers and the Judiciary
Letter to Lamar Smith and the Judiciary
or create your own, describing why your organization is supporting the bill. Sign it, making sure to use your legal name and organization address.
The letter(s) should be addressed to:
The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee
RE: June 9, 2009 hearing for HR 2289.
and mailed to:
The Honorable John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee
1201 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515
FAX: 202-225-0071 Phone: 202-225-5126
Email address for John Conyers: john.conyers@mail.house.gov
Please send a copy of your letter or email to:
Jody Kent National Coordinator for the Fair Sentencing of Children
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 500
Washington, DC 20009 jkent@endjlwop.org
Your letter must arrive in DC by June 1, 2009.
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Re “Justices Agree to Take Up Life-Without-Parole Sentences for Young Offenders” (news article, May 5):
There are currently almost 2,500 people serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed before age 18. Fifty-nine percent received their sentences for their first-ever criminal conviction. Sixteen percent were between 13 and 15 when they committed their crimes, and 26 percent were sentenced under a felony murder charge where their offenses did not involve carrying a weapon or pulling a trigger.
Our society recognizes that juveniles differ from adults in their thinking, reasoning and decision-making capacities. Research also demonstrates that adolescents actually use their brains in fundamentally different ways from adults. As a result, they are more likely to act on impulse, without fully considering the consequences of their actions.
This fall, the Supreme Court will decide if juvenile offenders should be eligible for life without parole. One hopes they will concur with the growing public sentiment that it’s time to stop sentencing young people to die in jail.
Let’s hope that this is the beginning of The Change in the sentencing laws of this country. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of The CHANGE of the Felony Murder Rule and other atrocities being carried out in the name of justice.
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An analysis commissioned by the Connecticut General assembly addresses the use of the FELONY MURDER RULE in the states of California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Masschusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and Washington.
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0087.htm
All but four states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio — have some version of the felony murder rule, according to this report.
The information in this report about Florida seems wrong to me. Most everyone I know in Florida who has been convicted of FM has been convicted of 1st degree murder, not 2nd. I wish it were true – with a 2nd degree conviction, a lot of people I know could be out of prison by now.
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This looks very promising for those sentenced before they were 18 years old.
On May 6, 2009, Representatives Robert “Bobby” Scott and John Conyers introduced H.R. 2289, the Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009, in the US House of Representatives. The bill would require states and the federal government to offer youth offenders meaningful opportunities for parole after serving 15 years of a life sentence.
“Sentencing juveniles to die in prison is cruel, costly, and unnecessary,” said David Fathi, US Program director at Human Rights Watch. “Even youths who commit terrible crimes can grow and be rehabilitated.”
Read more here. The United States is the only country that uses life sentences for crimes committed by juveniles.
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Joe Sullivan, 33, should have the right to apply for parole.
The Supreme Court will decide if adult sentences are appropriate for juveniles. This does not directly address the Felony Murder Rule, but it affects many Florida inmates who were convicted using the FMR.
Joe Sullivan, now 33, who was convicted of rape two decades ago after a burglary at the home of a 72-year-old woman in Pensacola, Fla. The woman did not see Sullivan but identified his voice, and he was implicated by other, older boys who were part of the burglary.
At issue in this case is whether the fundamental principles supporting a 2005 Supreme Court decision that declared the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles should also be applied to life imprisonment sentences meted out to juveniles convicted of nonlethal crimes.
The cases are potential landmarks if the high court decides to use them to extend Eighth Amendment protections beyond the area of capital punishment to juvenile offenders who have been convicted and punished as adults.
“This court has recognized that the Eighth Amendment requires the states to treat juveniles differently than adults, at least in the context of the death penalty,” Jacksonville lawyer John Mills said in his brief to the court in the Graham case. “This is so because, given the difference between juveniles and adults, juveniles have a greater claim to be forgiven for their criminal misbehavior.”
The case will be heard in October of this year.
Reference: “Defining Cruel and Unusual“, Adam Liptak, NY Times
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Two letters from mothers came last week.
The first was from a woman whose “beautiful son” had been sentenced less than a year ago to life in prison without a chance to ever get out.
Her story was very similar to many that I’ve heard – in the wrong place at the wrong time, a complete and utter atrocity and miscarriage of justice. She didn’t understand. Her son was not a killer, and “would never hurt anyone in his life”. She has a website for her son – www.freebrianharvey.com.
I understand her confusion and dismay. Something has to be done. These stories need to be collected and told. Our legislators need to listen, understand the injustice and the cruelty.
I have been appalled for 16 years now. The only way I would ever have known about the Felony Murder Rule is through a friend who was trapped by it.
We need a good journalist in Florida who is willing to expose this story. And keep writing and writing about it.
The other letter came from a woman in Massachusetts who is attempting to get her son’s case reviewed. Joe Donovan has been in prison since he was 17, he is now 33. Please visit her website – http://www.supportjoedonovan.org – and sign the petition.
When I told a friend about these letters, she responded, “it just goes on and on, doesn’t it?”
Not only are there scores of men and women who are serving life sentence because of the FMR, they are still convicting them! Something has to be done.
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Two more letters arrived last week from inmates sentenced under Florida’s Felony Murder Rule. Both are respectful, but not understanding the harshness of the sentence that they have been given. They think that there has been some mistake, and that with money and a proper attorney, they could, in some way, get a more just sentence.
Oh my. I’ve been down that road.
The Felony Murder Rule is the law in Florida, and even though it is inherently cruel and unjust, the law is the law. Prosecutors can, and do, use this law, and once a sentence is passed there is no way to beat it in the courts. I only know of one Felony Murder conviction to have ever been overturned – that of Lisl Auman in Colorado.
I learned all of this the hard way.
The way I see it, there are only two ways for relief: clemency or changing the law.
With governors who are more interested in political repercussions than doing what is right, clemencies or commutation of sentences are a long shot. I don’t know of anyone sentenced under the Felony Murder Rule in Florida who has been granted clemency or any form of relief, no matter how peripheral their role in the crime.
The inmates who wrote me last week both ask the same question: Can you help me?
Can I?
I have just made an appointment to speak with my local state Representative, The Honorable Carl J. Domino. I’ll report back here.
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Two recent articles are making me hopeful that the FMR nightmare may be coming to an end! At least it is getting some media attention.
In the NY Daily News, Charles Grodin reports on a meeting with Attorney General, Eric Holder. If Holder’s comments about prosecutorial misconduct are any indication of his leanings, things look promising.
Florida author, Kay Day, keenly articulates the injustice of the Felony Murder Rule in her article in the US Report about the case of Ryan Holle:
The felony murder rule is an avenue for revenge. The rule is not applied uniformly by prosecutors. Both the U.S. Constitution and the state of Florida Constitution have provisions addressing excessive punishment. “Let the punishment fit the crime” is a well-worn maxim. In Holle’s case, I believe it doesn’t. Revenge undermines the justice system—it is often arbitrary and most often applies to those without substantial means to hire attorney dream teams.
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