Mid-West States Review Juvenile LWOP
The legislatures in both Nebraska and Michigan are reviewing proposals to end Life Without Parole sentences for convicted youths.
State Sen. Brenda Council of Omaha [Nebraska], who introduced the measure, argued that such a term is akin to a death sentence and doesn’t take into account that juvenile brains are not fully developed to make rational decisions. Her proposal, Legislative Bill 307, would make the sentence 50 years to life for juveniles who are 16 or 17 when they commit a first-degree murder. Juveniles under 16 would face a sentence of 40 years to life. The law would not apply to the 24 people now in prison who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles. It also would not guarantee parole, just a hearing.
[In Michigan] the youthful-offender parole reform bill (SB 174), which is tied to a bill to end juvenile life-without-parole sentences (SB 173), passed the House last year and was reintroduced this session in the Senate. The bills are now before the Judiciary Committee, which has yet to take action on the legislation. The measure would allow a parole board, after 10 years, to evaluate the cases of some juvenile offenders who are serving sentences of more than 10 years or serving life sentences or life without parole. Currently, those serving life are eligible for parole after 15 years; those serving life without parole are ineligible.
But passage of either legislation seems slim.
Several [Nebraska] state senators argued that such a change would be getting soft on crime … saying that the criminal justice system already takes into account factors like the age of a killer. Nebraska lawmakers adjourned before voting on whether to advance the bill. Council acknowledged that “it didn’t look good” after the day’s debate.
Michigan State Sen. Alan Cropsey (R-DeWitt), who serves on the Judiciary Committee, is not in favor of passing the juvenile sentencing bills out of his committee. The lawmaker … noted that the juvenile sentencing package is unlikely to advance through the Judiciary Committee “until someone shows us why it should move.” Cropsey said that increasing parole review for juveniles serving long sentences and ending life without parole for juveniles is unlikely to reduce the prison population. “You can talk about it theoretically, but when you start talking about the facts of a case, when you open up a file and look at the victims, you think, ‘This is not a good risk.‘” Parole boards are unlikely to release people convicted of such horrible crimes, he said, and the governor has the power to commute sentences in rare cases where appropriate.
The debates are covered in articles from the Omaha World-Herald and the Michigan Messenger.
