Should minors be sentenced to life imprisonment?

The United States, as I understand it, is the only country in the world that sentences minors; that is, those under the age of eighteen to life imprisonment without parole. This was challenged in court some ten years ago and the Supreme Court declared that it is unconstitutional to sentence minors to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Teenagers are basically the same all over the world. They have the same kinds of social, physical, and emotional problems to deal with, but their environment can make or break them. It is this environment that may be the determining factor of where they end up. Given the right encouragement and the right tools, they can do amazing things that set their lives on the right track, yet things happen that derail their hopes and dreams.

Adolescents around the world go to court for various reasons, murder being the most extreme charge, but after serving a sentence of a specified number of years they are released subject to certain conditions. One of them is that the authorities are satisfied that there is no risk to the public. They, except on rare occasions, appreciate their freedom and live their lives as law-abiding human beings.

People can and do change their lives in the sense that at the age of thirty they are completely different people from who they were when they were fifteen. I have read that the human brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty-five. The American justice system does not seem to take this into consideration and charge them as adults, but they are for all intents and purposes minors; even US law classifies them as minors.

Keeping people locked up serves no useful purpose and the motivation for wanting to keep another human being in prison can only be retribution, which is the revenge mentality. “I want him or her to pay for what they did.” I think a person with that kind of mindset is choosing to be a victim and it is quite sad that the judge was influenced to keep a criminal in custody.

There is a case in Florida where a fourteen-year-old boy killed an eight-year-old girl. He appeared before the judge for a new sentence after the Supreme Court ruled that life was unconstitutional, but after pressure from the relatives of the deceased, the judge ruled that he must remain in prison. The young man was now in his thirties and was a completely different person compared to that fourteen year old.

One only has to question the mindset of people who see the worst in another human being.

A young woman, also from Florida, killed a sixty-eight-year-old man and stole his truck when he was fifteen. You received a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but do you know what the most pathetic aspect of this case was?

It was that she committed this crime with her boyfriend of twenty-one years.

Pathetic because nothing was ever mentioned about her being misled by her alleged adult co-defendant. The justice system never seems to take this factor into account; however, according to the law, a person under the age of eighteen is considered a minor.

In 2007, a young woman named Erin Caffey, then sixteen years old, conspired to kill her family because her parents did not approve of her then nineteen-year-old boyfriend Charlie. It wasn’t just the age difference, it was what Erin was doing. His family was a devoted church family and they were all part of the worship team at the church they attended in Texas. Charlie’s friend and girlfriend participated in a brutal massacre in which Erin’s mother, Penny Caffey, her two brothers were killed, while her father, Terry, survived to tell the tale.

The two boys who committed the murder received a life sentence without parole, Erin’s friend received twenty years, while Erin herself is not eligible for parole until 2038.

My opinion is that Erin should have been treated more fairly considering her young age; I mean the fact that Erin planned all the murders should have been treated differently than if she had done all the murder herself. Erin was the only minor in this quartet, so who is responsible for the actions of the other three? Certainly not Erin.

I first learned about this case in 2017 after watching a television show about criminal investigation. I started a letter writing campaign for Erin the next day and it continued throughout 2018 and 2019, but I have not received a single response to all the letters I sent to the White House on this matter, but I did receive a letter from Erin herself. She gives the impression of being a happy young woman who receives visits from her father; yes you read that right, her dad who forgave his daughter.