Supreme Court Arguments Juvenile Life without Parole

Greetings from Washington, DC.

The Supreme Court will be hearing arguments tomorrow, March 20th, on Juvenile Life without Parole for 14 year olds. I've kind of neglected this blog for awhile, that is mostly because it's fairly painful to stay in the place where my head needs to be to fight this constantly. I have to take breaks. That never means I'm not following the filings and new laws, it just means I do it more privately.

The two cases before the Supreme Court are for 14 year old killers, one who participated in a robbery where the victim was shot in the head with a shotgun, and one who beat a man with a baseball bat, and then set his home on fire with him inside. They were both sentenced to a Life Sentence without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments about these two cases.

The thing is, there is rarely mention of the victims in these cases. The victims in these cases are Cole Cannon and Laurie Troup. You'd be amazed how many articles you can read about the hearings tomorrow and NOT see these individuals names listed. It's incredibly disturbing.

A few things about this issue, that I think I've said before, but it bears repeating:

- The sentence of LWOP is not just randomly assigned to children. Each case is judged by merit and State laws.

- This brain science that I keep reading about, doesn't wash. If teenagers were all so impulsive, there would be a much higher instance of random murder among the teenage population.

- These killers had tragic and difficult lives, long before they killed in some cases. That doesn't really excuse them from the fact that they murdered, does it? There is no correlation between how troubled ones youth is/was and the nature of their punishment for murder. Once the murder occurred, they are responsible for that action.

- There are some really, really evil individuals serving these sentences in this country. This notion that they are all these 'poor kids' condemned to die is absurd. One news outlet ran an article that featured a photo of the murderer as a toddler. No photos of the victims to be found.

- Those of us who stood in court and heard these sentences, believed they would be forever. Now, every time this issue is argued in a legislature or a court, we are forced to relive something a person who hasn't experienced this could never even comprehend. That is not to mention the number of families who have no idea this is even happening. Imagine, you've put this behind you, then the nightly news comes on and you hear that your loved ones killer may be getting a new hearing.

I wouldn't wish any of this on anyone. I know these killers families suffer with this as much as we do. Having said that, they can and do have conversations with their loved ones. They get to see them grow up and grow old, albeit in jail. I look at photos or drive to the cemetery to spend time with my sister. She will never grow old, she will never pursue an education, she is no longer on this earth.

In the end, I hope the Supreme Court holds the sentences of these individuals, and all other JLWOP killers as constitutional. If they do find in favor of the petition, lets hope it's only for 14 and younger, which is a very small percentage of these sentences. If they were to make a blanket ruling, than every one of us who thought we were through with the Justice System, will be right back in the thick of it, reliving the worst days of our lives.

These sentences when applied are just and should be upheld without any more trauma to the families left in the wake of these tragedies.

Our group filed a brief with the court, it provides more info on some of these teenage murderers.

http://www.teenkillers.org/wp-content/uploads/10-964610-9647bsacNOVJLAmicusBrief.pdf