by Taylor Walker

ANOTHER TRAGIC MURDER, ANOTHER 14-YEAR-OLD KID TRIED AS AN ADULT?

Los Angeles prosecutors plan to request that the 14-year-old who allegedly shot and killed his ICE agent father be tried as an adult. What is called a “fitness” hearing to determine whether the boy should be appropriately held to answer in an adult criminal justice system, will be held May 21st.

Parricide expert, Prof. Kathleen Heide, from the Dept. of Criminology at University of South Florida and Laurie Levenson, from at Loyola Law School, both weighed in on the issue on Larry Mantle’s Air Talk on KPCC.

IS LAPD CHIEF CHARLIE BECK PULLING PUNCHES ON POLICE DISCIPLINE? THE POLICE COMMISSION SAYS YES

The Los Angeles Police Commission opposed LAPD Chief Beck’s determination that Det. Arthur Gamboa operated within department regulations when he fatally shot a man in the back during a ruined drug bust. The Commission deemed Gamboa’s testimony and the evidence incongruent and added to their concern that Beck is not taking officer discipline seriously.

LA Times’ Joel Rubin has the story. Here’s a clip:

When the members of the Los Angeles Police Commission met behind closed doors last month to decide if a cop had been right to kill Dale Garrett, the two bullets in Garrett’s back raised serious concerns.

Det. Arthur Gamboa had insisted that Garrett left him no choice but to shoot when he pulled a knife and threatened to kill the detective during a botched drug bust. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the commission’s own watchdog agreed, recommending the oversight board find that Gamboa’s decision to open fire was within department rules.

But for a majority of the five-person commission, errors and inconsistencies in Gamboa’s account, along with the fact that he shot Garrett in the back, could not be ignored. In a divided vote, the commission concluded the detective was not believable. The shooting, the panel ruled, violated the LAPD’s policy on when officers are justified in using lethal force.

With that decision, the shooting became the latest in a series of incidents in which Beck and his civilian bosses disagree on whether an officer’s decision to use deadly force was appropriate. These cases have given rise to a rare vein of tension between the chief and commissioners, who otherwise have heaped praise on Beck since he took over the department 2 1/2 years ago.

TO CLOSE OR NOT TO CLOSE CALIFORNIA’S LAST PRISONS FOR KIDS.

Barry Krisberg, Director of Research and Policy at UC Berkeley’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute has changed his stance on the Department of Juvenile Justice in the face of realignment to the county level, which he said would be far less capable of taking care of the most serious juvenile offenders.

Moreover, while the “realignment” strategy has saved some money, asthe DJJ population has been significantly reduced, the spending per kid has remained relatively unaffected due to inflexible union contracts and other expenses that seeme immune to cost cutting, even as the inmate population fell to a tenth of it what it once was.

KALW’s Sayre Quevedo interviewed Krisberg. Here’s a clip from what Dr. Krisberg had to say:

…For the thirty years I’ve been a critic of the California Youth Authority and the conditions of confinement and the problems there. But two things have changed in this situation. One is that the population is now only 10 percent of what it used to be. Many of the youth that we were advocating to get out of DJJ, are now out and in county programs and that’s gone generally pretty well. Now we’re down to a very small core of very troubled young people and so I think that people need to pay attention to the fact that these are not the youth who have been in the system in the past.

The second issue is that in the last eight years there have been significant improvements made—not enough, not as much as I would like. But one of the problems is that at the county level they’re at ground zero. My concern is that we’ve worked hard, we’ve developed policy and procedure, we’ve improved education and medical care, we’ve cut down on the use of force and isolation but at the county level they’ve done nothing. So it’d be going back to where we were eight years ago, very harsh conditions, very harsh practices, and having to start all over again.

by Taylor Walker

USING PHOTOGRAPHS TO CHANGE MINDS ABOUT LOCKED UP KIDS

The Juvenile-in-Justice project, created by Photographer Richard Ross, documents the conditions youths live in within the juvenile justice system. The project is intended to raise awareness and will include traveling exhibit and a book–both due Fall 2012. The Juvenile-in-Justice book will include over 1000 photos of incarcerated juveniles and over 200 photos of staff and essays from This American Life’s Ira Glass and the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Bart Lubow. The website and blog about the project features amazing images and interviews and is absolutely worth visiting.

Here’s what Ross has to say about the project in a personal statement:

In the past I have photographed for major magazines, newspapers and institutions. At this phase in my career I am turning my lens towards the juvenile justice system and using what I have learned in 40+ years of photography to create a body of work of compelling images to instigate policy reform. My medium is a conscience. My products are photographic and textual evidence of a system that houses, on any given day, over 90,000 kids.

TRAGEDY ALL AROUND WHEN A 14-YEAR OLD LA BOY KILLS HIS ICE AGENT DAD

A 14-year-old was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of shooting and killing his father, a Los Angeles-based ICE agent. Authorities say the boy shot his father, Myron Chism, in the back of the head with Myron’s federal-issued handgun.

AP’s Greg Risling has the story. Here’s a clip:

The father was found dead after the boy called 911 late Wednesday and said the man had been shot in the back of the head by a bullet fired through a window from the backyard of their home in Carson, near Los Angeles, sheriff’s officials said.

“Evidence gained from the scene and statements made by the suspect” led to the arrest, sheriff’s Lt. Holly Francisco said.

The boy was taken into custody at the home and booked for investigation of murder.

No motive for the killing was released.

LA Times’ Matt Stevens and Kim Christensen also covered the story.

Larry Altman of the Long Beach Press-Telegram too has a lengthy report.

Let us hope that prosecutors don’t compound this tragedy by racing to try the boy who killed his dad as an adult so they can give him the usual LWOP sentence.

SPLIT CALIFORNIA APPEALS COURT SAYS 50-TO-LIFE SENTENCE FOR 16-YEAR-OLD SHOULD REMAIN

In a 2-1 split decision this week, a California appeals court upheld a 50-to-life sentence given to a 16-year-old. Quochuy “Tony” Tran was charged in 2007 with killing 15-year-old Ichinkhorloo “Iko” Bayarsaikhan at an Alameda park after two groups of kids yelled insults at each other. Tran’s five friends, who were with him the night of the shooting, were also tried for murder, but in juvenile court, while Tran was tried as an adult for the killing, which appeared to be the result of an angry impulse and a single shot. As a result, a girl is dead and a young man will live out most of his life in prison.

Here’s a clip from the story by Bob Egelko from the SF Chron:

Tran’s sentence was “proportional to his crime,” said Presiding Justice William McGuiness in the ruling by the First District Court of Appeal. He said Tran was the instigator of the killing and an attempted robbery that preceded it. And under legal precedent, McGuiness said, the U.S. Supreme Court has only shielded minors from sentences of death or, in non-homicide cases, of life without the possibility of parole. The high court is considering whether to extend those rulings to a ban against all life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, but McGuiness said that wouldn’t apply to Tran because it’s possible he will be paroled within his lifetime.

But dissenting Justice Stuart Pollak said the logic of the previous rulings should also apply to a youth like Tran whose crime, while “horrible and tragic,” was the result of “a single sudden and impulsive act.”

Pollak said a counselor who worked with Tran after he was jailed described him as ”a child … angry, impulsive, and dangerous,” who matured into “an admirable, independent-minded young man.” Although the crime deserves severe punishment, the justice said, Tran is capable of rehabilitation and should have a chance to live some portion of his adult life outside prison.

The state Supreme Court has already agreed to decide whether another 16-year-old, who was sentenced to 110 years in prison for three attempted murders, is constitutionally entitled to a realistic chance at parole. Tran’s lawyer, Frank McCabe, said he’ll ask the court to review his case as well.

You can read the Bay City story on his conviction here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: AND THERE WAS ALSO THE ALTADENA BEAR STORY…AND A WOLF UPDATE

Okay, admittedly not a juvenile justice story, although there were bear cubs involved…

However, after the often painful stories we deal with here, we figured perhaps some cool bear footage was called for.

And while we’re on the general topic, it looks like OR7, the young male wolf who’s been wandering between Oregon and northern edge of California, is back in our fair state again as of May 1.

For those interested who live in No Cal, wolf biologist Carter Niemeyer (whose work I know from the state of Montana) will be in the Bay area talking about wolfish topics in a four event tour that kicks off on May 6.

WitnessLA is going to be dark for a few days this week while I am in New York City to take part in a juvenile justice fellowship and symposium sponsored by the John Jay College Center on Media, Crime and Justice and The Tow Foundation.

The fellowships brings together 31 journalists from all over the country to meet with some of the nation’s best experts in the myriad topics related to how we treat our American young people when they come in contact with the criminal justice system—all stuff that WLA will be digging into more deeply in the next year.

AND…..FOR THOSE OF YOU INTERESTED IN WLA’S ONGOING COVERAGE OF THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT, WE HAVE LOTS MORE COMING. There is another chapter still to come about Aero Bureau. And we’ll be publishing a new chapter in May of Matt Fleischer’s Dangerous Jails series. Plus there are more threads we’re investigating after that.

In any case, see you on Friday.

IS DEATH PENALTY A DETERRENT?

More than three decades after the moratorium against capital punishment was lifted, the prestigious National Research Council released a report that, after reviewing dozens of studies, failed to find reliable evidence that the death penalty is actually a homicide deterrent. In fact, the Committee of Deterrence and the Death Penalty said that any past research on the subject should be disregarded in death penalty debates as incomplete and unsupportable.

The LA Times has the story.

Here’s a clip:

The Committee of Deterrence and the Death Penalty concluded that studies on the death penalty and its potential effect on homicide rates — both pro and con — contain fundamental flaws that essentially make them moot.

For example, the studies do not include the effects of other forms of punishment – such as life in prison without possibility of parole, and whether it too acts as a deterrent. The studies, study authors wrote, don’t “consider how the capital and noncapital components of a regime combine in affecting the behavior of potential murderers.”

In other words, previous studies don’t determine whether potential killers think about the possibility of spending their lives in prison or ending up on death row before they commit their crimes.

The lack of comprehensive information makes the research inconclusive, the study authors said. “We recognize this conclusion will be controversial to some, but nobody is well served by unfounded claims about the death penalty,” committee Chairman Daniel Nagin said in a telephone news conference.

“Nothing is known about how potential murderers actually perceive their risk of punishment,” he said.

SLASHING NATIONAL JUVENILE JUSTICE FUNDS

Funding for juvenile justice programs is likely about to get slashed—again.

The Crime Report’s Ted Gest has the story.

Here’s how it opens:

Federal funding for state and local juvenile justice programs seems likely to take another big hit as Congress continues to slash federal “discretionary” spending.

The Republican-controlled House committee that appropriates money for the Justice Department today issued its proposal for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. It would cut juvenile justice funding to $209 million–a figure that stood at $424 million in fiscal year 2010.

Federal aid for juvenile justice already had fallen more than 50 percent to its lowest level in more than a decade, says the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, which represents state advisory committees in Washington, D.C. The coalition is asking Congress for $80 million for “formula grants” that helps states comply with mandates in a key 1974 juvenile crime law, such as separating juvenile and adult defendants in jail and keeping minor offenders out of custody.

House appropriators, rather than adding funds for those purposes, would cut them to $33 million.

The Obama administration’s funding request of $140M for three important juvenile justice programs would be slashed to just $53M under the House committee’s proposal.

FIRST RACIAL PROFILING HEARINGS SINCE 9/11

A Senate committee hearing for the End Racial Profiling Act featured testimony from 225 different organizations on Wednesday. If passed, the legislature would forbid officers from using race as a component in standard law enforcement decisions.

Salon’s Jefferson Morley has the story.

Here’s a clip:

….as profiling has become entrenched in drug enforcement, counterterrorism and immigration control, said criminologist David Harris, research shows it is an ineffective law enforcement tool. “In many contexts, in many types of police agencies, the results all fall in the same direction: when racial or ethnic profiling is used, police are less likely, not more likely, to catch bad guys,” Harris said.

Ron Davis, police chief in East Palo Alto, Calif., said his experience as a cop on the streets confirmed that finding. Admitting that he himself had engaged in profiling, he called profiling “an ineffective tactic that wastes scarce law enforcement resources and it harms our relations with communities whose cooperation we need.”

Davis said passage of S. 1670 would help police nationwide.

“Without the legislation and updated Department of Justice guidance we will continue business as usual and only respond to this issue when it surfaces through high-profile tragedies such as Oscar Grant case in Oakland, Calif., and the Trayvon Martin case in Sanford, Fla.,” he said.

The Obama Administration has yet to have joined the bill’s supporters.

EDITOR’S NOTE: SHOULD THE LA TIMES HAVE PUBLISHED THOSE PHOTOS?

There has been, and continues to be, a lot of controversy around whether or not the LA Times should have posted the two graphic photos of American soldiers posing with dismembered Afghan corpses. The Pentagon asked the Times not to publish the photos, contending that the publication would incite violence.

It is a thorny question. I happen to think the Times did the right thing.

Yet, I’m grateful that I wasn’t one of those who had to make the decision.

On To the Point, Warren Olney interviewed David Zucchino, the award-winning LA Times reporter who wrote the story accompanying the photos.

The New York Times has a report on the Pentagon’s objections—and how the Times’ came to be in possession of the photos in the first place.

And here the Poynter Institute weighs in, with two stories.

As of this writing, there are more than 2000 comments on the LA Times website regarding the issue.

Photo by Phil Sandlin for the AP

WHY HAVE SOME JUVIE PROBATION OFFICERS BANNED HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES?

by Matthew Fleischer

On first weekend of April, Homeboy Industries founder Father Greg Boyle was making his usual rounds to LA County’s various juvenile probation facilities, when he had a strange conversation with three female probationers.

“I asked them when they were coming to see me at Homeboy,” he remembers. “They told me, ‘We can’t. Our probation officer won’t let us.’ I thought, ‘Huh? That doesn’t sound right,.”

Homeboy Industries has a national reputation for its nearly 25 years of work with at-risk youth and former gang members from all over Los Angeles County. Thanks to a $1.3 contract with Los Angeles County, LA County juvenile probationers are supposed to be given preferential access to Homeboy’s formidable array of wrap-around services: tattoo removal, counseling and job training to name just a few. Boyle makes a point of encouraging kids to show up during the first week after their release when they are trying to repurpose their lives.

But, says Boyle, probation officers explicitly told these three girls they were not allowed to spend time at Homeboy. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten word of such directives. Boyle says he’s aware of at least 10 kids who desired to come to Homeboy for help but were prevented from doing so by their probation officers. “When I first heard about this happening I thought it was a mistake,” he says, “but this has been going on for months now.”

Homeboy’s director of legal services Elie Miller says she has had her own experiences with the anti- Homeboy prohibition. In one recent incident she dealt with a mother whose son had a job at Homeboy—but was forced to quit by his probation officer. “She was upset and came by to ask what she could do,” says Miller. “Here’s a mother excited her son is able to come somewhere for services, and the probation officer makes an arbitrary decision to halt that rehabilitation. It’s insane.”

So why are county juvenile probation officers denying kids in need of help the chance to work at Homeboy Industries? It certainly isn’t because of Homeboy’s performance, says UCLA researcher Jorja Leap, who was hired by the county to evaluate the effectiveness of Homeboy’s county-sponsored programs. In the first quarter of 2012, none of the 30 enrollees in Homeboy’s comprehensive Job Readiness and Job Placement Service Program were re-arrested.

“We’ve been following these kids very closely,” says Leap. “We’re finding that once they’re enrolled at Homeboy, there is virtually no recidivism—roughly 96 percent stay in the program. That is outstanding and virtually unprecedented.”

Nevertheless, says Father Boyle, probation officers are telling kids that working at Homeboy is a violation of the terms of their probation–because gang members are known to be on the premises, or former gang members anyway.

“That’s akin to telling an alcoholic he’s not allowed to go to AA because there will be other alcoholics there,” says Boyle. “It makes zero sense.”

Calvin Remington, deputy chief of the LA County probation department, agrees. I called him on Monday and asked if he thought working at Homeboy was a breach of probation protocol, due to the presence of gang members. “Absolutely not,” he replied. “We’d have to shut down our probation camps if that were the case.”

Remington assured me that there was no top-down directive from the probation department to steer kids away from Homeboy. But he also made it clear that Homeboy isn’t the perfect fit for all juvenile probationers—which could explain why probation officers discouraged certain individuals from attending. “For some kids less is better,” he said. “If you have a lightweight kid, there’s no reason to send them to Homeboy. Homeboy is for the deep-in kids: for the kids who need lots of help and need it quick.”

That caveat aside, Remington says there isn’t any other reason POs should be discouraging enrollment in Homeboy’s programs. “It’s possible that certain probation officers who are unfamiliar with the program could have told their kids to stay away from Homeboy,” he says. “We’ll look into it.

“I’ve known Father Boyle for a long time,” Remington continues. “I have tremendous respect for him and he provides a real service to the whole community.”

For his part, Boyle agrees with Remington that is likely a case of a small number of probation officers who haven’t done their research regarding Homeboy, its services and its rate of success. “Look, we have no shortage of kids looking to access our services,” says Boyle. “We’re not dependent on the probation department to help fill our caseloads. But I would hate to see someone denied the option to come here who really wants to turn their life around. The problem with many of these kids is a lethal absence of hope. Hope is our currency here at Homeboy.”

by Taylor Walker & Celeste Fremon

WILL SAN JOSE COPS WEAR MINI-CAMS FOR WATCH-DOGGING PURPOSES?

San Jose’s Independent Police Auditor wants her city’s cops to wear small cameras in order to keep the San Jose PD officers accountable for such things as “curb sitting” minorities over minor traffic stops and for unnecessary uses of force. Joe Rodriguez reports for the San Jose Mercury News.

Here’s a clip:

San Jose police officers may be forcing blacks, Latinos and other minorities to sit on street curbs more than others after minor traffic and pedestrian stops, according to the city’s independent police auditor.

LaDoris Cordell said Thursday she wants cops to document the ethnicity or race of everyone ordered to “curb sit” and to record the specific reason for the stop. She also wants officers to wear small cameras on their uniforms to record everything that happens.

“It would be a huge step in building trust between the San Jose Police Department and the community,” she said a few minutes before posting her annual report to the City Council on the Internet.

By the way, the camera in the photo is by the Taser people (who make, you know, tasers). Interestingly, among their their first law enforcement customer for the gadgets are the 150 patrol officers for the Bary Area Rapid Transit (BART).

FLORIDA APPEALS COURT SAYS THAT, JUST BECAUSE AN 80 YEAR SENTENCE FOR A NON-MURDERING KID ISN’T LWOP—IT’S STILL A LIFE SENTENCE.

Thursday a Florida appeals court voted to overturn a juvenile offender’s 80-year sentence for armed robbery with….a pellet gun. The panel of judges ruled that the result of the sentence would be essentially the same as that of a life in prison without parole–which runs counter to the US Supreme Court 2010 decision in Graham v. Florida, which says that a kid can’t serve life without the possibility of parole where no murder was involved.

The AP’s Bill Kaczor has the story.

Here’s a clip:

A Florida appeals court panel said Thursday that 80 years is too long to keep a juvenile locked up for a non-homicide crime.

However, the three-judge panel of the state’s 1st District Court of Appeal also said uncertainty will continue over compliance with a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that rejected absolute life sentences for juveniles who haven’t killed anyone until a higher court or the Florida Legislature addresses the issue.

The judges struck down an 80-year sentence for an inmate who committed armed robberies when he was 17.

A term that long is the functional equivalent of life without parole, the appellate judges wrote as they sent the case back to a Pensacola trial court for resentencing. They also urged lawmakers to follow the high court’s guidance and explore how to comply with its opinion.

[SNIP]

The Supreme Court decision doesn’t limit sentence length but says juveniles must get a meaningful opportunity to seek release based on maturity and rehabilitation if they have been convicted of non-homicide crimes. It also doesn’t preclude the possibility a juvenile will spend his or her life behind bars but does “forbid states from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society.”

Good for Florida’s 2nd Circuit. It would be nice if California prosecutors would stop asking for those same insane sentences for juveniles, with the pretense that they aren’t LWOP, therefor not subject to Graham.

ACCESS TO JUSTICE IS CLOSED DUE TO BUDGET CUTS?

This coming Monday, at 1:30 pm a special American Bar Association task force will hold a press conference in Sacramento to talk about “…the Crisis in State Court Underfunding..”

The task force includes such legal superstars David Boies and Theodore Olson (You know, the guys who’re the lead attorneys on the Prop. 8 challenge, and lead attorneys opposing each other in Bush v. Gore) plus California Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and other luminary types.

Here’s a clip from the ABA press release:

….Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye says California has “closed” signs on courtrooms and clerks’ offices in 24 counties around the state after four successive years of budget cuts totaling $653 million. Despite these cuts, and increasing caseloads, the California judicial budget is on the brink of facing an additional $100 million in cuts if Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s current budget is approved as proposed.

These budget cuts have resulted in reduced availability or elimination of court self-help services, and other cost cutting measures that directly impact the ability of the courts to adequately serve the public. California is not alone, however; 42 states cut funding for their judiciaries in 2011, reducing access to justice for thousands of Americans, according to the National Center for State Courts.

You can read more about the details of the event here.

EDITORS NOTE:

WE ARE HEARTBROKEN TO HEAR ABOUT THE DEATH OF STANISLAUS DEPUTY SHERIFF ROBERT PARIS ON THURSDAY

It’s been a week of tragedies. First the two USC grad students, then the perplexing case of the young Woodland Hills man who, led LAPD officers on an erratic high speed chase before exiting his car and managing to end his life in a storm of police bullets.

And now 53-year old Deputy Robert Paris gets gunned down in the course of duty, serving an ordinary eviction notice.

Rosalio Ahumada of the Modesto Bee has more about Deputy Paris and about the shooting, which also ended the life of a civilian, whose name was not released as of this writing.

by Taylor Walker

CAN MARRIED GAYS DIVORCE IN NON-GAY MARRIAGE STATES?

Washington Post’s Ellen McCarthy reported Monday

on a same-sex couple seeking divorce in Maryland, where gay marriage itself has not been legalized.

Here’s a clip:

The electronic board outside the courtroom identified the case as “No. 69, Jessica Port v. Virginia Anne Cowan.” That title is misleading. Port and Cowan are on the same side of this case: They both want to get divorced. But a Prince George’s County judge said they could not, reasoning that because same-sex marriage is not legal in the state, neither is same-sex divorce.

Now the highest court in Maryland will decide whether he was right, and whether the women will be required to maintain a bond they’ve tried for almost two years to sever. The case represents just one of the many blind spots in the legal infrastructure of same-sex marriage in America. Couples often have different rights when they cross jurisdictional lines and may not have the same status in the eyes of the federal government as they do in their home states. The laws are constantly evolving and election-year politics promise to heighten the already divisive passion surrounding the issue.

VISIONARY LEADER OR AUTOCRATIC BULLY? WHY DO THOSE WHO WORK WITH LAUSD’S SUPT. JOHN DEASY SEEM TO EITHER LOVE OR LOATH HIM?

The LA Times’ Teresa Watanabe and Howard Blume took a look at LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s aggressive methods for cleaning up the K-12 school system and the wildly divergent opinions of his efforts thus far.

Here’s a clip:

…Deasy is pushing to change the culture of a behemoth school system with 660,000 students on 743 campuses across 710 square miles of urban sprawl. Some see Deasy as a dynamic leader driven by a moral urgency to give all students a quality education. But others view him as a relentless taskmaster intolerant of dissent.

“Either you do what he wants or you’re gone,” said one senior administrator who, like most senior aides and top administrators contacted, asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Antonia Hernandez, president of the California Community Foundation, is one of many civic leaders who believes Deasy should press harder to improve a district where just over half the students graduate on time and half are not proficient in reading and math.

“We all know what LAUSD has been doing in the past hasn’t worked,” she said. “He needs to be even more aggressive. People are hungry for leadership.”

Deasy admits he can be impatient and undiplomatic but otherwise makes no apologies for his style. He says he wants to find common ground with teachers and administrators; consensus is his preference rather than his priority.

THE NY TIMES ASKS WHY IN SOME STATES KIDS ARE STILL HOUSED WITH ADULTS IN ADULT PRISONS A NY Times Sunday Op Ed called on the DOJ to reform the juvenile justice system nationwide and eliminate the unethical placement of youth in adult facilities. An estimated 10,000 youths under 18 can be found in adult jails or prisons on any given day, according to federal statistics. As [32 members of Congress] pointed out, data from a 2005 study showed that youths made up only 1 percent of the inmates in jails and prisons, but 21 percent of the victims of sexual violence.

Numerous studies show that placing children in adult prisons leads to more suicide, victimization and recidivism, which is costly in both human and economic terms.

EDITOR’S NOTE; A RALLY FOR KENDRIC MCDADE WILL BE HELD TUES. 6 PM ON THE STEPS OF PASADENA CITY HALL

According the the email from the Youth Justice Coalition, the NAACP of Pasadena will be attending, so will the Pasadena Foothill ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the Pasadena Community Coalition, various religious leaders and a list of others.

A week from Tuesday the US Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Jackson v. Hobbs and Miller v. Alabama, two cases concerning whether the sentencing a 14-year-old killer to life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

For those who are interested in the juvenile LWOP issue (a sentence of Life Without the possibility of Parole), the go-to site to track the legal side of the matter is Doug Berman’s Sentencing Law & Policy, as Berman is parsing the various developments in the twinned cases with a very experienced eye.

For instance, Berman points out that the precursor for the Jackson and Miller cases to be heard next week, is the SCOTUS ruling on the earlier cases of Roper and Graham, which concerned LWOP for kids who had not committed murder, and which the court found to be unconstitutional. Thus it’s going to be interesting to watch the various SCOTUS justices respond when their own wise words are bounced right back to them in this broader set of cases.

If you want to get still wonkier, take a look, for example, at the amicus brief filed by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association for Social Workers. It gives an idea of how the petitioner attorneys will quote the Supremes—to themselves.

Begin by reading the opening of the summary from that brief, which you’ll find on page 15.

HOW THE CASE MAY AFFECT OTHER STATES

In addition, all this week, Michigan Live is doing an excellent series on Juvenile Life, although neither of the cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court next week are from Michigan (they are from Alabama and Arkansas). Still, Michigan is second only to Pennsylvania for its number of juvenile lifers, thus the Michigan Live team is pulling apart the issue for its readers. (LA Times? This might be a good time for a California series, no?)

Here’s how the first one opens:

He was 14 years, 11 months and 1 day old.

That night TJ Tremble rode his bike to the home of Peter and Ruth Stanley. He had the .22-caliber rifle given him by his dad. He had alcohol in his belly, some also from his dad. And, police say, he had murder on his mind.

Before daylight, the Michigan youth would be behind bars for the rest of his life. Or maybe not.

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether mandatory life sentences are too cruel for anyone so young. It will be exactly 14 years, 11 months and 1 day since Tremble got on his bike.

Now 29, is it possible he has changed in the second half of his life, or that he can change with more time? Should he at least have the consideration to one day walk free?

Or does death make it different?

In a state with more “juvenile lifers” than almost any other, the answers will resonate throughout Michigan as the high court addresses this: Are life sentences, without any chance of parole, unconstitutional even for juveniles who commit unthinkable crimes?

If the court’s earlier rulings are an indication, the answers could be yes.

[But the reporters acknowledge these are not simple issues, particularly for the families of victims.]

“It rekindles it,” says Dennis Stanley, son of the murdered Peter and Ruth Stanley, of next week’s hearing. “I was just thinking of that this morning. It’s like counting down to April 1997. We’re still very bitter, angry and, sure, we go about our lives. But no one knows what the victims go through.”

“It never ends,” he says. “It never ends.”

AND ON OTHER JUVENILE JUSTICE ISSUES…..THE LA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS WILL VOTE TUESDAY ON WHETHER TO OPPOSE GOVERNOR BROWN’S PLAN TO CLOSE THE STATE’S JUVIE PRISONS—AKA DJJ

Youth advocates like the Youth Justice Coalition will show up at the Supes’ meeting on Tuesday to ask the Supervisors to instead work to “create a local alternative to DJJ so families can stay involved and programming can be more consistent.”

It’s a complicated choice, to be sure, but DJJ is preposterously expensive, and has no good record of doing right by its charges. The recidivism rate is horrendous.

On the other hand, LA County’s juvenile facilities—run by the probation department— have their own problems (to understate the matter greatly). In choosing between two bad choices, I tend to lean toward what the YJC says. Bring these kids home, and take the state’s money to deal with them here.

But that is if—and only if—we can commit to providing appropriate oversight and programs for them. Alameda County, for example, is doing just that. But, thus far, LA seems to have little stomach for such an endeavor.

A few days ago, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevensen gave a talk at TED’s yearly spring event in Long Beach.

For those of you not terribly familiar, TED is a nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

Since then it’s expanded to be an international brand for brilliance, innovation and inspiration.

Last week TEDs spring talks took place and Stevensen—who is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization that litigates on behalf of condemned prisoners, juvenile offenders and others whose trials are marked by racism and misconduct—was one of the much-ballyhooed speakers.

At the end of the his 24-minute talk, Stevensen received what was reportedly one of the longest and loudest ovations from the audience in TEDs history.

And it wasn’t just that they stood and clapped and clapped and clapped. They wouldn’t sit down.

One of the cases that Stevenson’s group, the Equal Justice initiative, is presently representing is that of Anthony Ray Hinton, who has been on death row in Alabama for more than 25 years.

It seems the whole case against Hinton rests on four bullets. No one saw Hinton at the crime scenes, there’s no other evidence linking him, and there is compelling reason to believe he was at work at the time the shootings took place.

The state said the bullets, recovered at the two crime scenes, matched the gun that was recovered at Hinton’s mother’s house. During the appeal, three different forensic experts—including the FBI’s main expert on firearms markings—said that the bullets did NOT come from Hinton’s gun….

Anyway, there’s more on the story plus links to multiple newspaper articles on the case here.

ANOTHER CASE OF INNOCENCE DISREGARDED WITH EDWARD LEE ELMORE…

The case of Edward Lee Elmore, which was hideously mishandled by police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the judiciary, is documented with riveting precision in Pulitzer Prize–winner Raymond Bonner’s brand new book, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong.

Then less than a month after Bonner’s book was published Elmore was released from prison but, as Bonner writes in this NY times op ed, the victory was bittersweet. Here’s how his essay opens:

EDWARD LEE ELMORE turned 53 in January. For more than half his life, the soft-spoken African-American who doesn’t understand the concept of north, south, east and west, or of summer, fall, winter and spring, was in a South Carolina prison, most of it on death row.

On Friday, Mr. Elmore walked out of the courthouse in Greenwood, S.C., a free man, as part of an agreement with the state whereby he denied any involvement in the crime but pleaded guilty in exchange for his freedom. This was his 11,000th day in jail.

Mr. Elmore was convicted in 1982 for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly white widow in Greenwood. His trial lasted only eight days, including two spent picking the jury. The state concealed evidence that strongly pointed to Mr. Elmore’s innocence and introduced damning evidence that appears to have been planted by the police. For three decades lawyers for Mr. Elmore, who were convinced of his innocence, sought to get him a fair trial.

Headlines and news stories about men being released from death row based on DNA testing suggest that this happens often. But it doesn’t. Once a person has been convicted, even on unimaginably shaky grounds, an almost inexorable process — one that can end in execution — is set in motion. On appeal, gone is the presumption of innocence; the presumption is that the defendant had a fair trial. Not even overwhelming evidence that the defendant is innocent is necessarily enough to get a new trial. “Due process does not require that every conceivable step be taken, at whatever cost, to eliminate the possibility of convicting an innocent person,” Justice Byron R. White wrote for the majority in a 1977 case, Patterson v. New York.

In other words, innocence is not enough….

RACIAL DISCREPANCIES FOUND IN SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

According to new data from the Department of Education, black students are far more likely to be disciplined harshly in public schools. Tuesday’s New York Times has the story. Here’s how it opens.

Although black students made up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection’s 2009-10 statistics from 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts, serving about 85 percent of the nation’s students. The data covered students from kindergarten age through high school.

One in five black boys and more than one in 10 black girls received an out-of-school suspension. Over all, black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. …

A new report released on Thursday by the Sentencing Project, “The Lives of Juvenile Lifers,” presents findings from “the first-ever national survey of this population,” that offers new perspectives on people who exactly committed crimes before the age of 18 (and some as young as 13).

The report comes just weeks before the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the cases of two 14-year olds, Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, which will examine questions about the constitutionality of sentencing teens to life without the possibility of parole.

More than 2,500 people who were arrested while still minors, are currently serving these LWOP sentences in the United States.

Here’s some of what the report found:

“Most juveniles serving life without parole sentences experienced trauma and neglect long before they engaged in their crimes,” stated Ashley Nellis, research analyst of The Sentencing Project and author of the report. “The findings from this survey do not excuse the crimes committed but they help explain them. With time, rehabilitation and maturity, some of these youth could one day safely re-enter society and contribute positively to their families and their communities.”

The Lives of Juvenile Lifers survey draws a portrait of the severe disadvantage experienced by those serving life sentences without parole:

• Juvenile lifers, especially girls, suffered high rates of abuse—nearly half (46.9%)of lifers experienced physical abuse, including 79.5 % among girls.

• Juvenile lifers were exposed to high levels of violence in their homes (79%) and their communities (54.1%).

• African American youth constitute 43.4% of life without parole sentences for a murder with a white victim, nearly twice the rate at which they are arrested for such crimes, 23.7%.

Failed by systems intended to protect youth, many juveniles sentenced to life without parole first suffer from extreme socioeconomic disadvantage, and are then sentenced to an extreme punishment deemed unacceptable in any other nation….

There’s a lots and lot more so take a look.