Or should I say Florida fact of the day?:
According to court papers and a report
from the Equal Justice Initiative, which now represents Mr. Sullivan,
there are only eight people in the world who are serving sentences of
life without parole for crimes they committed when they were 13. All
are in the United States.
And there are only two people in that group whose crimes did not involve a killing. Both are in Florida, and both are black.
So, he shot someone while committing a robbery for his gang… and I’m supposed to think it’s bad that he’s in prison because she happened to not die of her wounds?
Maybe the problem here is that not enough robbers who shoot people are in jail for a long time – even if they’re 13 at the time they rob and shoot people?
(If this comes across as being low on sympathy – consider that a justifiable reaction to the EJI report’s transparent attempts at emotional manipulation for the Poor Victim Kids who’re committing armed robbery and shooting innocent people.
Emotional manipulation always makes me believe they know they have no decent logical argument (which, note, includes logical ethical and moral arguments) to stand on.
EFI blames bad environments for these kids’ outcomes – which seems quite plausible.
However, instead of directing their energies to remedying those environments, they seem to spend a lot more time trying to get robbers and murderers (or attempted murderers) out of prison.
Is the implication that a 13 year old who’s willing to rob and try to kill is somehow more amenable to remedy than an 18 year old? Is there any reason to believe there’s a difference beyond the 18 year old never having been caught before 18?
My understanding of that kind of criminal activity is that most of it is committed by habitual lifelong offenders.)
As Brad DeLong would say ” Why do not we have a better….” . I think we are all sad and impotent .Thanks for posting this terrible injustice .
And there are only two people in that group whose crimes did not involve a killing.
Both are in Florida, and both are black.
And what is the statistical significance of this?
Interesting that they aren’t arguing these people are innocent. The Equal Justice Initiative doesn’t seem very interested in equal justice for victims.
There’s no question these are tragic stories, but society has a right to protect itself from demonstrably violent, dangerous criminals. If there were hordes of kids committing rapes and armed robberies, the developmental argument might stand up, but there aren’t. If a kid rapes a 72 year old or shoots someone during an armed robbery, I’m not happy about locking them up, but they’ve crossed a line that justifies doing so permanently.
Reading the above comments has changed my mind as to the distribution of idiots among MR readership.
The future will see present society’s prison system with the same disdain, incomprehension and moral disgust that we have when thinking about slavery, gladiators, forced child weddings and the like.
I’m tired of seeing the same type of sentence construction in the text of every single one of these whiny and indignant leftish organizations. Look at how they construct the sentence here: “all of the children condemned to death in prison for non-homicide offenses are children of color.” So what? What lands you in prison is not your race, but the actions you committed. Are non-homicide crimes deserving of the death penalty committed disproportionally by children of color? Of course they are – so there’s nothing damning about that statement on its face.
All of these organizations want to absolve anyone of any responsibility by making them the passive actor. They entered prison because they committed a positive action, they committed a crime. If “people of color” want to continue to commit crimes disproportionally, let them reap the full consequences that justice requires.
I wish people were not so vindictive.
Fine. Give Florida back to whatever state/indigenous people we got it from. If the new sovereigns want to free these guys, then fine.
I don’t think that the U.S. penal system is above reproach. I think I would start with non-violent drug offenders and work my way up to gun-wielding gang bangers though.
The real tragedy, and a stupid one at that, is all the nonviolent drug users arrested and fined or locked up. I agree with Steve: let’s start with the nonviolent drug “offenders” and work our way up.
Legalization of at least marijuana is hopefully coming to the US within my lifetime. And maybe the current economic disaster will make us taxpayers question why we are clogging up the judicial and prison systems with nonviolent drug offenders.
Prohibition didn’t work in the 1920s and 30s, and it isn’t working today.
“Reading the above comments has changed my mind as to the distribution of idiots among MR readership.”
Funny, I read comments like yours and I feel exactly the same way.
“The future will see present society’s prison system with the same disdain, incomprehension and moral disgust that we have when thinking about slavery, gladiators, forced child weddings and the like.”
Maybe, or maybe just as likely the future will see today’s social/prison system as focusing far too heavily on non-violent offenders (mandatory sentencing for drug laws, etc.), and as too lenient on an increasing set of violent offenders despite growing trends in violent criminal behavior moving down the age ranks, all in the name of increasingly outdated concepts of “golly, they just don’t understand what they’re doing” and “not being vindictive.”
Or you could correct it to “Florida black population fact of the day”.
Crime says something about the criminal, not his victims or the justice system.
I knew a guy who committed murder at 13. He used to play on my hockey team. I was a goalie, and I remember once he fired a slapshot at me while I was adjusting my pads. He didn’t fit the profile for sociopathy — he had the ego, but he wasn’t a good liar — and therefore doesn’t have an insanity defense to excuse what he did. He was just an evil, evil teenager. He killed a girl his age in a field near my high school. I didn’t know the victim; when her name was announced my first thought was that I was glad it wasn’t someone I knew.
The thought of what he’d done cast a shadow over that year of my life; it was hard to accept that someone I knew would do that.
He was released from prison many years ago. That was the correct outcome.
—
There’s a personal identity problem here — to what extent am I even the same person that I was in the past? Life in prison is a long time. Really, to what extent do you identify with your 8th grade self? Do you share the same goals, friends, romantic partners, political philosophy, etc.? Things change fast in the teen years. Not putting early teenagers in prison for life acknowledges the fact that their 60 year old self is hardly going to be the same person that committed the deed.
If you think it’s OK to imprison 13 year olds for life, I’d like to hear your opinion as to when we should draw the line. Here’s an eight year old double-murderer, killed his father in cold blood along with another man. Should he go to jail for life? Are there people here who dont think there is some age below which we do not hold people responsible for the rest of their lives?
I totally agree with you Linkt though I would not use the disparaging term ‘idiots’ to describe them, I prefer the more benign term- ‘ignorant’. I am not against punishment, but juvenile life without parole is to me, without doubt a cruel and unusual punishment as it circumvents one of the primary goals of our correctional system- REHABILITATION!, Is 10 to 25yrs not long enough? Have we become a bunch of sadists? Have we become so jaded and lost total confidence in the human spirit that we don’t believe 20 years in prison is enough time for a person to realize the error in a stupid/horrible act committed when only 13yrs?
“only two people in that group whose crimes did not involve a killing.”
This makes their actions sound so innocent, doesn’t it? It’s as if they were just jaywalking or something, and racist judges couldn’t wait to ruin their lives!
Oh wait — one of them raped a 72-year-old while threatening to kill her, and the other was convicted of attempted murder. In other words, one was entirely happy to commit murder but ended up not needing to, and the other was simply bad at it.
Nice journalism!
“there are only eight people in the world”
So, the matter in question is so rare as to be irrelevant given the low-to-medium magnitude of possible injustice in each of these eight cases.
I was 13 once and didn’t choose to shoot anyone. I’ve never broken into a house, robbed or even raped anyone. I also didn’t choose to be in a gang or get involved with drugs. I shouldn’t feel sorry for someone who does. I grew up in a slum and I put myself through college. Life is full of choices and if you make bad ones then you have to live with the consequences. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white or brown, 13 or 89. Imagine if a punk 13yr old did this to your grandma. Would you feel the same way? Would you want this guy back out on the streets? Would it matter what color his skin was?
Should we be concerned that all serial killers are white? What does it matter what color of skin these criminals are? It’s a crime! Is one crime better than another crime? No.
“Have we become a bunch of sadists?”
Punishing vicious criminals is sadistic? Wow, priorities FAIIIIIIILUUUUUUUUURE.
I don’t see a problem “ruining” the life of someone who himself ruined a life. Or should we just execute the kids? Why not?
Yeah so it does turn out that commenters at MR really are lower calibre than I thought. Go and read the story. This is an atrocious and embarrassing situation for the USA. No other sane country in the world locks up children for life without parole. All the lawsuit wants is the chance for the guy to apply for parole. Amazing how narrow-minded and judgmental some people are.
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