Does
Sentencing a Teenager to Life in Prison Without Parole Serve Our
Society Well? POV's '15 to Life: Kenneth's Story' Follows a Young Man's
Plea for Redemption, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014 on PBS.
“This little gem. . . . does a fine job of using one very human story to make a larger point about the criminal justice system.” — Erin Sullivan, Orlando Weekly
The
United States is the only country in the world that routinely condemns
children to die in prison. This is the story of one of those children,
now a young man, seeking a second chance in Florida. At age 15, Kenneth
Young received four consecutive life sentences for a series of armed
robberies. Imprisoned for more than a decade, he believed he would die
behind bars. Now a U.S. Supreme Court decision could set him free. 15 to Life: Kenneth's Story
follows Young's struggle for redemption, revealing a justice system
with thousands of young people serving sentences intended for society's
most dangerous criminals.
15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story has its national broadcast premiere on Monday, Aug. 4, 2014 at 10 p.m. on PBS's POV (Point of View) documentary series. (Check local listings.) It will stream on POV’s website, www.pbs.org/pov/15toLife/, from Aug 5- Sept. 4.
In
June 2000, 14-year-old Kenneth Young was convinced by a 24-year-old
neighborhood crack dealer—Kenneth’s mother’s supplier—to join him on a
month-long spree of four armed robberies. When they were caught, Kenneth
didn’t deny his part. It was his first serious scrape with the law. But
at 15, he was tried under Florida law as an adult. Astoundingly, he
received four consecutive life sentences—guaranteeing that he would die
in prison.
Kenneth’s sentence was not a rarity. There
are more than 2,500 juveniles serving life sentences in the United
States for non-lethal crimes, as well as for murder. In the 1990s, many
states reacted to a rise in violent youth crimes by amending their laws
to allow more juveniles to be tried as adults. Then, in 2010, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida that
life sentences for juveniles convicted of crimes other than murder were
unconstitutional. That made 77 Florida inmates, including Kenneth,
eligible for early release. But how would the Florida courts,
historically in favor of juvenile life sentences, apply the Supreme
Court decision to a decade-old case?
Public-interest
lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal
Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., provides perspective. “The
United States permitted the death penalty for juveniles until 2005,” he
says. “When we finally persuaded the Supreme Court to ban the death
penalty for children, I was clear that that . . . life imprisonment
without parole would still not be a just outcome for many of these
kids.”
The cast of 15 to Life includes
the legal advocates who have taken up Kenneth’s cause. Paolo Annino,
head of Florida State University’s Children in Prison Project and a
co-director of the Public Interest Law Center in Tallahassee, has long
argued that life sentences for juveniles violate the Constitution’s ban
on “cruel and unusual punishment.” His research was cited in Graham v. Florida, which opened the door for resentencing Kenneth and thousands of others.
Kenneth’s
guilt-ridden mother, Stephanie, struggles to convince the court that
her son deserves the help she never gave him. “I know the judge has a
heart,” she says. “I’ve prayed and I asked for forgiveness on behalf of
me and my son.”
Nadine
Pequeneza says, “As I began to research, reading articles, reports and
studies from individuals and groups on both sides of this argument, I
discovered some shocking statistics: 60 percent of children sentenced to
life without parole are first time offenders and every 13- and
14-year-old sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime is
a child of color."
"When
children commit crimes, should rehabilitation take precedence over
punishment? Can children be ruled to be adults, based on a single
action? Can children who commit violent acts be rehabilitated? By
focusing on Kenneth's story, I set out to find the answers."
15 to Life is a HitPlay Production.
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