Second Chances

BreakPoint WorldView » May 2009

As Raphael Johnson gazes at his toddler son and infant daughter, he imagines the agony he would experience if someone murdered one of these precious children. And he believes he understands now how the mother of Howard Johnson must feel each time she thinks of her son—her son who is dead because of a crime Raphael committed when he was 17 years old. “Now, many years later,” Raphael says, “I have another, deeper, understanding of her pain.”

Raphael’s guilt will never leave him. Everyday he remembers the night when, in a blind fury after losing a fight, he ran to a friend’s car, grabbed the gun that lay inside, and pulled the trigger three times. The bullets pierced the body of Howard Johnson, an onlooker unconnected to the brawl.

But Raphael knows the boy who killed Howard so many years ago is also, in a sense, dead. “In many, many ways, I am not the same person I was at age 17. I did things then that I could never do now. I have chosen a different path.” During his incarceration, Raphael explains, “I thought about my faith and relationship with God. In doing so, I learned self-discipline. I began to search my soul. Through this self-introspection I was able to question my thinking of the past, develop a value system and have a deeper understanding of my actions.”

As he recounts the transformation that occurred in him during his twelve years in prison, he is overwhelmed by gratitude for his chance to prove this difference outside of a prison cell. In the four years since his release, Raphael has married, had two children, graduated summa cum laude from the University of Detroit Mercy, started his own company, and dedicated his life to volunteering and writing curriculum to help prisoners successfully reenter society. Raphael thanks God for these opportunities. He knows that many other offenders, who, like him, committed their crimes as juveniles, can only hope to leave prison in a casket.

Kenneth Young is one of these offenders. At age 15, Kenneth participated in a series of armed robberies in Florida. He grabbed the money and the security camera tapes, he recollects, while his 25 year old accomplice held the gun. Kenneth says he committed the crimes because of his partner’s threats to kill his mother if he resisted. Florida is one of the 39 states across the country that allows juveniles to be given sentences of life without parole. Kenneth received this punishment for his crime. Unless granted clemency, he will grow up, grow old, and die behind bars.

The United States is the only nation in the world that has juvenile offenders like Kenneth in prison for life without the possibility of parole. Over 2,300 people in prisons across the U.S. are serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were as young as 13 or 14 years old. Most are in prison for their first offense.

Condemning children to die in prison violates international standards of state conduct, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Justice demands punishment for these children’s crimes. But, throwing them into prison for rest of their lives without any opportunity for release is far from just.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to intimidation and abuse in the adult criminal justice system, which is the only system that can deliver and enforce life without parole sentences. They are susceptible to coercive interrogations that can produce false confessions. They also have limited ability to understand legal rights and trial procedures, placing them at risk of making mistakes that lead to harsher penalties.

Children’s vulnerability does not end in the courtroom, however. Those held in adult facilities are five times as likely to be sexually assaulted in adult prisons than in juvenile facilities. Beatings and rape also greet these youth, who have no peers or social support to help them cope in adult jails and prisons’ brutal environments.

Sentencing juveniles to life without parole is also unjust because it attributes to them a level of responsibility that is inappropriate for their level of development. According to scientific research, the human brain’s frontal cortex, which manages risk assessment, moral reasoning, and control of impulses, does not develop until after adolescence. Youth instead rely more on the amygdala, which is associated with aggression and impulse. This means that juveniles are not as able as adults to think through a situation rationally before acting. They also have fewer defenses against peer pressure and manipulation.

The U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged the relevance of this scientific data to criminal behavior in its 2005 case Roper v. Simmons. The decision made juveniles exempt from capital punishment because of their immaturity. Raphael agrees with the court’s assessment of young offenders. He testifies, “I…can empathize with the errors of a misguided teenager who acts without thinking and takes the life of another person.” However, the Supreme Court decision still left dying in prison as an option for juveniles. That means that, unless laws change, the prospects of Kenneth ever leaving are bleak.

More fundamentally, juvenile life without parole is intolerable because it denies the possibility and power of redemption. Sentencing juveniles to life in prison discounts not only their immaturity but also their unique ability to change, to become people who differ starkly from the rash youths who broke the law. As the prodigal son, Mary Magdalene, and the criminal hanging next to Christ’s cross show, no evil in the human heart is so powerful that it cannot be broken. Raphael believes he is a case in point. He stresses, “For any juvenile offender who commits a crime as horrible and senseless as mine, there is still hope.”

For some people, this message is difficult to swallow. Family members of murder victims often do not want to consider a release date for the murderer. The fact that their family member was killed by a juvenile does not make him or her any less dead. These people’s desire for permanent punishment is born of intense heartache.

Maggie Elvey says this pain is hard to describe. She shares her story on an internet forum hosted by the National Organization of Victims of “Juvenile Lifers.” Her husband, Ross, was beaten to death by a duo of Crip gang members. A 16 year old boy was involved in the murder and has received a life without parole sentence. Maggie writes, “I still find new things everyday that I have lost and have to work through…We must make sure that homicide victims’ survivors of juvenile killers have their voices heard across the country when it comes to discussing change in juvenile sentences past and future.”

We must listen to and love these hurting people. Restorative justice requires considering victims’ needs and involving their concerns in the process of punishment. At the same time, restorative justice does not deny offenders the opportunity to prove their transformation.

Angela Williams believes the best way to care for family members of murder victims, like Maggie, is to help them embrace forgiveness. Angela started Mothers Against Murder Association, Inc. (MAMA), a Florida-based nonprofit organization, to help mothers of murder victims overcome the pain and anger that come from losing a child. Seven of Angela’s nieces and nephews have been murdered. Wrestling with grief in her family and learning to forgive the offenders gives Angela the vision to help other women experience the same healing.

The importance of forgiveness, Angela says, is the message she gives to people whose children have been murdered by juveniles. “It’s hard at first,” she concedes, because rage is often people’s gut reaction to murder. But, she insists, those who don’t forgive will live enslaved to anger for the rest of their lives and never recover from the tragedy.

Child offenders should receive a second chance, Angela says, and her organization supports clemency for Kenneth Young. Clemency is one solution. However, legislation is brewing in several states this year that would revise sentencing procedures for juveniles to either ensure possibility of parole or at least grant review of the initial sentence. Nebraska, Florida, Iowa, California, and Michigan all have bills before their legislatures to eliminate or reform these sentences.

The passage of this legislation is essential for just treatment of juveniles. We must not refuse hope to children so young they have never shaved, never driven a car, never voted, never been to high school. These youths should be punished, but not at the cost of their entire lives.

Raphael hopes his life demonstrates the importance of giving children second chances. “By the grace of God I did not receive a life without parole sentence, and because of that I was released from prison and have dedicated my life to making amends.” All juvenile offenders should have the opportunity to have Raphael’s story. As Kenneth quietly stares through the bars in his prison window, he hopes that somehow, someday, he will.

Karen Williams is a restorative justice assistant for Justice Fellowship.