Fair Sentencing for Youth Act offers hope to juveniles serving life terms
USC Gould’s Post-Conviction Justice Project (PCJP) is expanding its client base to include juvenile offenders sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
The move comes as California enters the important debate over the future of 16- and 17-year-old offenders who face dying in prison despite rehabilitation. State legislation – known as the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act – was signed into law on Sunday, Sept. 30 and allows inmates to petition the court to be resentenced to a life term with the possibility of parole.
"We have taken on this issue because children are different than adults, and deserve to be treated differently in the criminal justice system,” said USC Gould Prof. Heidi Rummel, who co-directs the PCJP. “Courts and scientists agree that adolescents are less culpable. Their brains are still developing. They are impulsive, vulnerable to peer pressure and often a victim of their life circumstances. But most importantly, they have a much greater capacity to grow and change.”
The Project has agreed to represent 13 juvenile offenders, many of whom are in their 30s today. Sixteen USC Gould students are working on the cases under the supervision of Rummel and Prof. Michael Brennan, who co-directs the Project.
Law students will be conducting mitigation investigations, developing expert testimony, preparing resentencing hearings and litigating novel legal arguments. They will see firsthand how advocacy and lawyering can impact law and policy. Michael Hart ’14 said working with PCJP’s clients has not only been educational, but inspiring.
“Our clients are so hopeful, and doing the best they can to make their lives worthwhile,” Hart said. “Being a part of the Post-Conviction Justice Project has really allowed me to make a difference in people’s lives, and I feel that throughout this school year, the clinic will truly be effecting policy and creating new precedents to give individuals a second chance at life.”
PCJP’s clients share similar stories – they were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to die in prison, in some cases without actually killing anyone. For example, Christian Bracamontes was convicted of first-degree murder after a friend shot and killed another teenager over a marijuana sale. Similarly, Elizabeth Lozano was 16 years old when she was sentenced to life without parole following a felony murder conviction. Both have rehabilitated in prison and been praised for reaching out to at-risk youth, despite spending their formative years in prison.
"You feel hopeless," Lozano said in a recent Los Angeles Times story on juvenile sentencing laws. "The smell, the noise. You feel like you are going to die in here."
Nationwide, about 2,500 inmates convicted of homicide crimes as juveniles are serving life in prison without parole. Many will be directly affected by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling striking down mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles as cruel and unusual punishment.
But more than 300 juvenile offenders in California would have been left behind without the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act. Although inmates will have to meet stringent criteria to be eligible for resentencing, and will have to convince a parole board that they are suitable for parole, the act gives them hope.
“It’s very difficult for juveniles to face a sentence to die in prison,” Rummel said. “The Fair Sentencing law gives them hope that they are not beyond redemption – if they work hard and rehabilitate, they might have a chance to go home.”
For the past three years, Rummel and her PCJP students have been advocating to change the juvenile sentencing laws in California. They have traveled to Sacramento to discuss the issue with lawmakers and testified before the state legislature. “It is uniquely rewarding for students to see that their efforts can make such an important difference,” Rummel said.
Co-directo Brennan has overseen the PCJP’s long history of post-conviction representation – federal parole and habeas cases, state and federal habeas petitions for survivors of battering sentenced to life, and parole hearings for state inmates serving life terms.
“We will continue to represent women who have a history of abuse and women serving life terms, but the opportunity to represent juveniles sentenced to life without parole is a relevant [meaningful] opportunity to expand our client base and practice in a developing area of the law,” Brennan said. “These cases also present a rich legal experience for our students.”
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