In the coming months several high profile Supreme Court cases will be heard and decided. Among them, the Supreme Court will decide the fates of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for crimes that did not involve a death. Traditional legal advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have lined up behind accused children sentenced as adults.

What some are finding surprising is that traditionally conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, concerned with “overcriminalization” and “Big Government” are to blame for a “out-of-control” criminal justice system.

Read more about how the Right and Left are finding common ground on justice reform at The New York Times

As I write this post,  I am watching a four part CNN story about a soldier who executed two Iraqi prisoners of war and covered it up for nine months. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are calling for leniency. “These men,” they say, “are distinguished veterans; who were caught up in the horror of war.”

This country understands how to forgive. In fact, I believe we have a great capacity for both understanding and forgiveness. What I don’t understand is how our system of “impartial laws” can be so cruel as to misunderstand our children’s fears and misjudge them so profoundly that the only option we see is to try them as adults without so much as a hearing from a juvenile judge.

That is the callousness with which the Grand Junction District Attorney judged, tried and sentenced Cheyenne Corbett to 16 years in prison for what she thought, as a scared teenager, was the still birth of her first child. According to the story by Lisa McDivitt at NBC 11 News in Grand Junction, the District Attorney said that Corbett never showed remorse. But according to the transcript from McDivitt’s interview with Corbett, the District Attorney never even spoke to her, let alone asked if she felt remorse.

So I ask again: Is this justice–really? If this is justice then we might as well give up teaching religion, philosophy, and law because you won’t find the Grand Junction DA’s brand of justice in any book on the subject.

Representative Laura Richardson from California’s 37th Congressional District recently added her name to the list of 4 cosponsors advocating in congress for juvenile justice reform.  The Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009 is sponsored by Representative Robert Scott of Virginia.
Among other things, the bill would offer juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole a “meaninful opportunity” for release.

On November 9, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the cases of Sullivan vs. Florida and Graham vs. Florida to decide whether juveniles sentenced to life without parole deserve a second chance.

The stories of Joe Sullivan, sentenced to life when he was just 13, and Terrance Graham who got life at 16 for armed burglary are relatively uncommon.  Worldwide there are 100 juveniles serving life sentences for crimes that did not involve a death.  But when you factor in crimes that did involve a death, those numbers skyrocket. In the United States, alone, there are well over 2000 inmates who were sentenced as juveniles serving life sentences.

Is that fair? Is it right? Alan Simpson, a former Repulbican U.S. Senator from Wyoming probably answered best when he related, in a recent Denver Post article, that when he was a teen  it was only “dumb luck” that he never really hurt anyone. “[Kids],” says Simpson, “do stupid things — as I did — and some even commit serious crimes, but youths don’t really ever think through the consequences. It’s for this reason that every state restricts children from such consequential actions as voting, serving on juries, purchasing alcohol or marrying without parental consent.”

Simpson’s point is well taken. Society recognizes that kids, and perhaps teenagers especially, are not competent or responsible enough to be functioning citizens. And yet, for some reason, as citizens–as a society–we can not bring ourselves to take responsiblity for teenagers’ mistakes.

In Colorado there are more than 40 inmates serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Between 1993 and 2006, District Attorneys around Colorado used their ability to direct file adult charges against juveniles and bypass juvenile court judges to try kids as adults. As Simpson notes, kids aren’t mature enough to make adult decisions in the heat of the moment.  But District Attorneys continue to use direct file to meet out cruel and unusual punishments to kids in order to make headlines.

Punishing kids for political gain is unconscionable.  We have a juvenile clemency board for a reason. We live in a nation of laws, not just politics. Kids who were sentenced to unfair prison terms and rehabilitated should be released. Judges in Colorado should be allowed to carry out the law and make sure that justice, not retribution, is served.

It’s time for us to take responsibility for our kids; not just as parents, but as a society. Its time, as Alan Simpson puts it, to remember that “When a young person is sent ‘up the river,’ that all rivers can change course.”