Teenagers, oy. There's a video out there of a couple of teen boys we know who ran around in the snow in their shorts one year and made snow angels, sans shirts. The other day another boy tried to go to school in sub-30 temperatures--without a coat. And those are the smart ones, with good raisin'.
If you've ever been the parent of a teenager, or been around teenagers, or ever were one yourself, you know they aren't the most level-headed creatures known to man or woman. There's a reason 21 means 21. There's a reason 16-year-olds can't vote. There's a reason (actually more than one) why parents insist the lights stay on in the living room on date night, even when a scary movie is on TV.
Young people don't always make the best decisions. But at 14 years old? At 13 years old? Those kids may technically be teens, but most of us would consider them just children. This state's top court recognized as much back in the summer, when it ruled that mandatory life sentences for young people are out of the question. Which was a conclusion the nation's top court came to earlier. Now, in a ruling this week, the U.S. Supreme Court says that those decisions should be applied retroactively, and hundreds of inmates across the land might have hope for resentencings.
There are enough studies out there that show the minds of juveniles aren't fully developed. About 10 years ago, a psychology professor at Temple University said the teenage brain is like a car with great pickup--but terrible brakes. We haven't heard it said much better.
According to the state, Arkansas has more than 50 inmates who, as teenagers, got mandatory life sentences of life without parole. The recent rulings pave the way for them to at least get hearings.
Mind you, these several rulings over the past few years don't tell the courts that a teen who commits a terrible crime can't be put in prison for life without parole. What the courts have said is the law can't make those punishments mandatory for convictions of certain crimes. A judge or jury can still hear a case and decide to put the kid away. Forever. They just can't be forced to.
Which makes sense. Mandatory life sentences sound cruel and unusual to us. Why have a jury sit during the sentencing phase if the law requires a certain decision? To quote a Supreme Court justice on the federal level, Elena Kagan, "Youth matters."
It certainly does. When deciding whether to send somebody barely into his teens off to The Big House until he dies, that decision should be made by living, breathing, reasoning people--with their own souls to think about. Not by some statute in a law book that can neither see nor feel. When a sentence is mandatory, forced, required, there is no leeway for the exercise of human judgment. And judges and jurors are spared the burden of thinking. A life sentence that just clicks into place sounds more like something a robot or computer might be programmed to do.
That's a great way to save time. And lose everything else. Are things like justice and mercy and compassion just details? And of course, of course, of course this decision by the justices should be retroactive.
For the record, the ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court this week doesn't require states resentence all those former juvenile offenders. The court said states can offer parole hearings--with no guarantee of release. But at those parole hearings, humans would be involved.
Because if a young person needs to go away for life--if his crime was so terrible that parole should never be a possibility--let human beings make that decision. Save the machines for less important work.
Editorial on 01/29/2016