Juvenile Justice Reform

Via Scoop.it – Juvenile Justice

Keaira Brown was only 13 years old when she killed Scott Sappington Jr. in an attempted carjacking. She’s now 16 and going to prison for life without the possibility of parole for 20 years.
Via juveniledefendants.blogspot.com

Via Scoop.it – Juvenile Justice

Ellenette Brown, who is black, had no clue 16-year-old Georgina Mitchell, who is white, was pregnant. How could you tell? In 1987, all the kids were wearing baggy football jerseys. Georgina’s was certainly roomy enough to hide a swelling belly.
But there were a lot of things Ellenette probably didn’t know about the young woman who befriended her son, John Harleston. Georgina had come to Clarksville to live with her sister. Her mother warned her she could come back home to Georgia on one condition: without the black baby growing in her belly. Georgina never went home.
Instead, she began hanging around Ellenette’s house, a gathering spot for neighborhood teens. Ellenette, a trim woman with finely boned hands, was a substitute teacher at a nearby elementary school. Kids like Georgina were drawn to her. They could talk to her about things they could never broach with their own parents.
Via irishgreeneyesbodysnatchers.blogspot.com

Via Scoop.it – Juvenile Justice

Six years after the murder, Brown is studying as a Lipscomb University undergraduate student – despite serving a life sentence in the prison at the Tennessee Prison for Women (TPFW) – as part of Lipscomb’s LIFE (Lipscomb Initiative For Education) program. Thirty students from campus spend one night a week studying side-by-side with the inmates for credit. In addition to the screening of the film, Lipscomb will present a panel including the filmmaker; Brown’s adoptive mother Ellenette Brown (who is featured in the film); Randy Spivey, a local lawyer who has taught Brown in the Lipscomb program; and Preston Shipp, a former appellate prosecutor who worked on her case and who also happened to teach her through the LIFE program.
Via juveniledefendants.blogspot.com

Via Scoop.it – Juvenile Justice

“It was ugly and a raw deal from the get-go back in ’93… When you’re thinking of these three kids, one, Damien Echols, on death row for 18 years, spent 10 years in isolation, for a crime that he did not commit.”
And the actor is secretly holding out hope U.S. President Barack Obama will pardon the controversial West Memphis Three and clear each of their records.
He adds, “I mean, it would be wonderful if he did, but I think he’s got a few other things on his mind at the moment… What I’m hoping is that the investigation will continue outside of the courthouse right now and that we will be able to prove the real killers.”
Depp isn’t the only celebrity fighting for justice for the West Memphis Three – rocker Eddie Vedder and Dixie Chicks star Natalie Maines have been close to the case for years and moviemaker Peter Jackson has been quietly funding a private investigation into the murders.
Via juveniledefendants.blogspot.com

Via Scoop.it – Juvenile Justice

“It’s simply inappropriate to put a 12-year-old child in the adult prison system, it won’t work,” said Orr, a Texas attorney. “It won’t benefit society or this child.” In his opinion Monday refusing to move the case to juvenile court, Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto called Houk’s death “an execution-style killing of a defenseless pregnant young mother. “A more horrific crime is difficult to imagine,” he wrote. Brown’s attorneys, Dennis Elisco and David Acker, have argued the boy’s case would best be dealt with in juvenile court, where he could receive treatment and incarceration specifically aimed at younger offenders.
Via juveniledefendants.blogspot.com