juvenile offenders

Advocates say juvenile prisoners are at risk

Jennifer White and Mercedes Mejia — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:42:55 +0000

Michigan is one of 25 states that allow convicted teens, under the age of 18, to be imprisoned with adults.

Attorney Deborah LaBelle is a juvenile justice advocate with the ACLU. She estimates nearly 200,000 children have been abused in adult prisons. LaBelle recently returned from Washington, D.C. where the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights conducted a hearing on this issue with representatives from the U.S. State Department. The hearing focused on the physical, sexual, and psychological abuse experienced by children when housed with adults in prisons.

"In addition to the physical and psychological harm that's going on, putting children in the adult facilitates also results in them losing the very two things that makes them children: education and contact with their family and parents," LaBelle said in this interview with Jennifer White.

You can listen to the full interview above.

Michigan locking up fewer kids, but is that good enough?

Sarah Alvarez — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:19:41 +0000

Fewer teens and kids are incarcerated now in Michigan than fifteen years ago. A new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation says youth incarceration in the state has dropped 44 percent since 1997.

New Michigan law makes it easier to erase juvenile crimes

The Associated Press — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 17:38:00 +0000

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a bill to make it easier for people to wipe juvenile crimes off their record.

The new law will allow people to go to court to erase up to three offenses a year after the case is closed, instead of five years. The old law allowed only one offense to be expunged.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Joe Haveman, R-Holland, was easily approved in the Michigan House and Senate before the Legislature's recent adjournment.

Court: No review of sentences for current juvenile lifers

Mark Brush — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:10:33 +0000

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder does not apply retroactively.

The case involved a resentencing request for Raymond Carp. In 2006, Carp was convicted of first-degree murder as a 16-year old.

Michigan AG continues fight to keep juvenile lifers behind bars

Jake Neher — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:08:30 +0000

State Attorney General Bill Schuette has not given up on trying to keep juvenile lifers behind bars.

Next week, he plans to file to join a case before the state Court of Appeals involving a 21-year-old man convicted in 2006 of assisting a murder.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles as unconstitutional.

Schuette spokeswoman Joy Yearout says the attorney general believes the ruling should not apply to people who are already serving sentences.

"For many of these cases it's been years, decades even, since the crime occurred. And these victims’ families thought they had a sense of closure. This could result in them having to be hauled back into court, relive the crime, be re-victimized again. And it would really be a mess for our justice system here in Michigan," says Yearout.

The ACLU of Michigan says the state cannot continue to keep people in jail without a new hearing if the U.S. Supreme Court says the sentence is cruel and unusual.

Michigan has more than 360 people serving mandatory life sentences for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18.

Schuette: Teen lifers don’t deserve re-sentencing

Rick Pluta — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 19:15:06 +0000

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says hundreds of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for murder or complicity in a murder should not get re-sentencing hearings.

Schuette says a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Michigan’s mandatory life without parole law for juveniles should only apply to future cases. He has asked the state Supreme Court to limit the scope of the federal decision.

Randy Wood is a spokesman for the attorney general. He says Schuette believes re-sentencing hearings would be a mistake.

Juvenile lifer ruling requires authorities to track down victims

Rick Pluta — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:01:46 +0000

There is some question on the reach of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down automatic life-without-parole sentences for juveniles.

Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office says it may only apply going forward and not to the 366 juvenile lifers currently serving in Michigan prisons.

Dawn Van Hoek directs the State Appellate Defender Office, which represents some of the juvenile lifers. She disagrees and said every juvenile sentenced to life without parole should get a new hearing.

“I think they’ve already signaled, the Supreme Court has, and, you know, you have to wonder why even bother if you’re not going to apply it to the hundreds of people who were affected nationwide by these unconstitutional laws,” said Van Hoek.

That would also require the state to track down the families of murder victims who have a right under Michigan law to testify at sentencing hearings.

State laws allowing life sentences without parole for juveniles unconstitutional

Rick Pluta — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 20:47:47 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning struck down state laws that allow juveniles to be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. The ruling says life without parole for crimes that occurred when a felon was younger than 18 is excessive and violates the Eighth Amendment.

Michigan is one of several states that allowed juveniles to be sentenced to life without parole. The state has more than 350 people in state prisons serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles.

Supreme Court rules life without parole for juveniles unconstitutional

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 14:29:32 +0000

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders violates the Constitution's Eighth Amendment (the ban on cruel and unusual punishment).

The ruling has big ramifications on Michigan. The state has one of the highest populations of juvenile offenders serving life sentences---358 out of about 2,500 nationwide.

The ACLU sued the state of Michigan back in 2010. Their press release at the time said the United States is the only country in the world that sentences young people to life without the possibility of parole:

....and Michigan incarcerates the second highest number of people serving life sentences without parole for crimes committed when they were 17 years old or younger. Currently, there are 350 individuals serving such mandatory life sentences in Michigan.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court drew from two previous cases---one banning the death penalty for youth offenders and the other outlawing life without parole for juveniles in non-homicide cases.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, said that those previous cases establish that "children are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes. Their 'lack of maturity' and 'underdeveloped sense of responsibility' lead to recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking."

New report highlights challenges for Michigan's juvenile lifers

Mercedes Mejia — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:26:41 +0000

Teen offenders in Michigan are worse off than teens in other states.

That's according to a new report from Michigan-based Second Chances 4 Youth and the state chapter of the ACLU.

Commentary: Push to privatize some prison services

Jack Lessenberry — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:52:08 +0000

Reporters were caught off base yesterday when they learned that Governor Rick Snyder was not in Lansing as they thought, but in Afghanistan, visiting the troops. The secrecy was understandably needed for security reasons, and the trip is the sort of morale-boosting thing that governors and other state officials traditionally do.

University of Michigan hosts panel on life sentences for juveniles

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:17:21 +0000

The University of Michigan Law School hosted a panel on life sentences for juveniles on Monday.

In Michigan, a first-degree murder conviction results in an automatic life sentence for anyone 14 or older. There are currently 359 people in the state serving life without parole for crimes committed as minors. Michigan is one of 11 states with this type of law.

Austin Land works at a law firm that focuses on these kind of cases. He says these convictions are a human rights violation, because children are not able to fully participate in the adult criminal system.

"Children have adolescent brains, they are risk-prone, and they lack adult faculties of judgment," Land said . "This all affects their ability to participate in their own defense, their ability to plea bargain."

On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court heard arguments for a pair of cases involving men who were fourteen when they were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Defendants claim this violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on ‘cruel and unusual punishment. ’

-Alex Markel, Michigan Radio Newsroom

Supreme Court cases could determine the fate of Michigan's youngest criminals

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:15:09 +0000

Michigan has one of the country's highest numbers of "juvenile lifers"---prisoners sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as minors---359 total.

That includes six who were only 14 when they committed their crimes.

These numbers come from an in-depth report from John Barnes at MLive.com.

Barnes profiled those six, including TJ Tremble, who has spent half his life, 14 years, in a state prison following a murder conviction. Tremble has no hope of release because of a mandatory life sentence.

Now, for the youngest of young offenders at least, there could be a path toward release. That's because of a pair of upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases involving young offenders.