Direct File Debate
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Please join the folks behind stopdirectfile.org as we host a head-to-head debate between Colorado Juvenile Defender Coalition attorney Kim Dvorchak and a Colorado District Attorney. The debate will focus on the question: should Colorado prosecutors retain the power to charge juveniles as adults? StopDirectFile.org hopes this debate will force the District Attorneys to take an honest look at the many moral and legal problems of Direct File.
The debate is scheduled for Thursday, March 18, 2010 and will be held in room 165 of the Strum School of Law at the University of Denver. The event begins at 5pm, and will be followed by a meet and eat; which will be a wonderful opportunity to meet others who are battling against this harmful statute.
The event is being sponsored and supported by numerous groups, including: The League of Women Voters, New Era Colorado, the Greater Denver Interfaith Alliance, and many others.
Apart from being an important debate, this is our opportunity to show the DAs how the citizens of Colorado feel about this issue. The more supporters who show up, the louder they will hear our message. Please plan to attend, and RSVP to: StopDirectFile@yahoo.com or call 720-314-1402.
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the system condems adults the same way they do kids. and the sickening thing is the wrong doers young or old dont get their punishment. just the fillers its all about money fight the world but we can not win. young old black white they dont care. we should worry about all humans being treated unfairly.
In principle, I agree. Whether its adults or children, the system is broken. But, to some extent, its important to prioritize. Children suffer in the system disproportionately to adults. In 2006 (according to a Denver Post article by Miles Moffeit), 60% of children sentenced to life without parole since 1998 served time in prison for complicity in a capital felony. Only 25% of adults serving life sentences were there on similar charges. That means that kids are disproportionately convicted because they just happened to be hanging around when a crime was committed. That isn’t right.
Children should not be given LWOP sentences. That is more cruel than a death sentence, and is motivated by nothing but mob mentality vengeance seeking on the part of the DA’s. How an adult can see a teenager and want to lock him up for life (to be abused and molested) is beyond me, but the fact that DA’s do it time and time again makes me feel sick to my stomach.