Editorial: Young lifers deserve at least a chance at parole

In its landmark 2005 opinion Roper vs. Simmons, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on criminals for offenses committed when they were younger than 18. Doing so, the court ruled, violated the Constitution's Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.

"Their own vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate environments," the court majority reasoned in Roper, "mean juveniles have a greater claim than adults to be forgiven for failing to escape negative influences in their whole environment."

The rationale that led the court to outlaw the execution of juveniles applies equally to the second-harshest penalty available to our justice system, life without possibility of parole.

The vulnerability and immaturity – and thus, the diminished culpability that the high court recognized in banning the death penalty for juveniles – are factors equally present for juveniles facing life sentences.

Nonetheless, life sentences for youthful offenders deemed too young to smoke, drive or go to R-rated movies are rapidly expanding both nationally and in California.

"Sentencing Children to Die in Prison," a sad and searing report issued this month by the University of San Francisco Center for Law and Global Justice, found that 2,387 juveniles have been sentenced to life terms in U.S. prisons. That's by far the largest number of such sentences handed down for juveniles in any country in the world. With 237 juvenile lifers behind bars, California is second only to Pennsylvania in the number of its children serving life terms, some for offenses committed when they were as young as 14.

As the report notes, "(Life without parole) is an effective death sentence carried out by the state slowly over a long period of years."

In fact, some juveniles serving life sentences without any hope of ever being released call it worse than death. Many face decades of confinement in prisons where in their early years they are subject to physical and sexual abuse by older inmates.

Racial disparity in life sentences without parole is glaring and disturbing. African Americans are 20 times more likely to be sentenced to life terms than white youths. Latinos are four times more likely to draw such sentences. The greatest racial disparity was found in California, where 158 of the 237 juveniles serving life terms are minorities. Most are also poor and suffered psychological, sexual and/or physical abuse and neglect before they committed the crimes for which they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

A bill by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, would end life terms without parole for juveniles in California. Senate Bill 999 does not call for the automatic release of juvenile lifers, but it would make them eligible to apply for parole after serving 25 years.

The bill recognizes what civilized countries across the world have acknowledged: Children have an enormous capacity to change as they mature from adolescence to middle age. It is time for California to recognize that, too.