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August 9, 2009
Detailing the extreme toughness of juvenile justice in Florida
The constitutionality of the extreme toughness of juvenile justice in two paricular Florida cases will be before the Supreme Court in the Graham and Sullivan cases to be argued in the fall. In the meantime, this front-page article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which is headlined "Florida justice: Tough on youths," provides more details on just how tough the Sunshine State is on young offenders. Here are snippets from the piece:
Records show that Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined. Florida's sentencing raises questions about cruelty as well as concerns about racial bias. While blacks represent about 16 percent of Florida's population, and about half its prison population, 84 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses were African-American.
Florida has sentenced 77 young men to spend their lives in prison, without any chance of release, based on non-homicide crimes they committed when they were 17 years old or younger, according to a preliminary study by Florida State University researchers. Six of those prisoners were 13 or 14 at the time of their crimes.
A Herald-Tribune review of state records shows that some juveniles were given life without parole for as few as one or two convictions of non-homicide crimes. Florida's stance has generated protests from human rights groups and a lawsuit heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, which contends such sentences violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
But the state shows little sign of stopping judges from imposing life sentences on juveniles or providing a path to freedom for those already in prison. Lawmakers rejected a bill last spring that would have allowed juveniles in some non-homicide cases to eventually become eligible for parole.
The controversy in Florida stands out because it differs so greatly from policies elsewhere. Florida prisoners represent 69 percent of the 111 inmates reported nationally to be serving life without parole for their non-homicide juvenile crimes. Thirty-six states have no non-homicide juvenile lifers.
August 9, 2009 at 09:28 PM | Permalink
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"Many of the changes came in the 1990s, when Florida was hit with a highly publicized crime wave, including the killings of nine tourists in 1992 and 1993. A British tourist was killed by a group of juveniles at an Interstate 10 rest stop in 1993 in a robbery that drew international press attention." The lawyer stymied the police, and it took months to find the murderer.
If you attack foreign tourists, you are threatening the biggest source of livelihood of Florida. Zero tolerance for such attacks sounds reasonable. Jack a German, and the headlines are all over Germany, where they do not even understand why crime exists. They cancel their Florida vacations.
Prof. Berman is so biased, he just presents one side, the Free All the Precious Child Prisoners side. Here, the lawyer protected the youths, instead of executing the lot. Crime victims paid the price of lawyer rent seeking. If average, this criminal likely has had 100's if not 1000's of more victims since he received the protection of the lawyer.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/apnews/stories/061401/D7CKIDI01.html
Most of the prisoners are fatherless. Bastardy is the single biggest risk factor in both crime victimization and in doing crime. Thank the lawyer for destroying the black family that had survived slavery, war, poverty, discrimination, but not the lawyer onslaught. Even today, many black folks still have Southern cultural traditions. One is loving, harmless, corporal punishment for extremes of child rule breaking. Child abuse is lawyer code for black family discipline, and a pretext to remove unharmed, but chastised children. No one may even verbally criticize one, that being labeled, emotional abuse, by the vile feminist, family destroying lawyer.
Before whites get too smug, in the 1990's the lawyer decided to go after the white family. All racial disparities in social pathology will disappear with the now steadily progressing destruction of the white family by the lawyer. Thank the lawyer for the coming surge in white bastardy.
Why does the lawyer seek to eliminate the family? It competes for authority with central government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession, in total control of the three branches of government.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Aug 9, 2009 10:29:51 PM
