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April 17, 2007
The state Senate Public Safety Committee has voted 3-2 to ban life without parole for youth. The legislation, co-authored by Senators Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) and Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), is now headed to the Senate floor for a vote. The legislation, SB 999, would allow the possibility of parole for youth after 25 years behind bars.
The National Center for Youth Law, Human Rights Watch, and other advocates are co-sponsoring the legislation.
The Senate committee approved the bill after hearing the testimony of James Tramel, who spent 21 years in prison for a murder he committed as a teenager. He became an ordained priest while in prison and is now married with a new baby. At the time of Tramel’s conviction, in 1985, California law prohibited sentences of life without parole for youth. (See news story about Tramel in the Sacramento Bee).
“Children have an extraordinary capacity for rehabilitation,” said Sen. Yee, a child psychologist. “The neuroscience is clear; brain maturation continues well through adolescence and thus impulse control, planning, and critical thinking skills are still not yet fully developed. SB 999 reflects that science and provides the opportunity for compassion and rehabilitation that we should exercise with minors.”
In the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), the Court banned the juvenile death penalty, determining that minors need to be considered differently than adults in sentencing due to differences in brain development.
SB 999, also known as the California Juvenile Life Without Parole Reform Act, would amend the Penal Code so that a child who commits a crime could not be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole; instead, a sentence of 25 years to life in prison would be imposed. The youth would not have the opportunity to request parole unless he or she had served the 25-year term. The parole board would then determine whether the individual deserved to be released or should remain in prison, which may continue to be for life.
Nationally, 51 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the world’s oldest human rights treaty, prohibits the imposition of this sentence on juveniles.
In the U.S., there are only 10 states, and the District of Columbia, that prohibit life without parole sentences for youth. There are approximately 2,225 youth serving life without parole in the U.S., while there are a total of only 12 other cases worldwide.
Life Without Parole in California
There are approximately 225 juveniles in California serving a life without parole sentence. California has the worst racial disparity rate in the nation for sentencing juveniles to life without parole. Black youth are given this sentence at 22 times the rate of white youth.
A number of California cases have recently been highlighted in the media due to the background of the juveniles who received the sentences, and the circumstances surrounding their crimes. One such case involves Sara Kruzan, now 28. She was raised in Riverside by her abusive, drug-addicted mother. Sara met her father only three times in her life because he was in prison.
Since the age of 9, Sara suffered from severe depression for which she was hospitalized several times. At the age of 11, she met a 31-year-old man named G.G. who molested her and began grooming her to become a prostitute. At age 13, she began working as a child prostitute for G.G. and was repeatedly molested by him. At age 16, Sara was convicted of killing him. She was sentenced to prison for the rest of her life despite her background and a finding by the California Youth Authority that she was amendable to treatment offered in the juvenile system. (See video of Sara Kruzan).
“Life without parole means absolutely no opportunity for release,” said Senator Yee. “It also means minors are often left without access to programs and rehabilitative services while in prison. This sentence was created for the worst of criminals that have no possibility of reform and it is not a humane way to handle children. While the crimes they committed caused undeniable suffering, these youth offenders are not the worst of the worst.”
“As a society we’ve learned a lot since the time we started using life without parole for children,” said Elizabeth Calvin, a children’s rights advocate with Human Rights Watch. “We now know that this sentence provides no deterrent effect. While children who commit serious crimes should be held accountable, public safety can be protected without subjecting youth to the harshest prison sentence possible.”
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