Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Short TV Post
In between The Unit (is the CIA really that evil?) and The Shield, I watched the majority of a Frontline special on convicted murderers doing life without parole in Colorado. It was pretty good, and I recognized a lot of people in it, like Mitch, Darren and Karen. I was long out of the prosecution business before any of the guys in the show were convicted and sentenced, but I did a lot of direct filings against juveniles I felt were soon to become adult career criminals. I'll get to that. Oh, that was the twist, that was the hook of the liberal concern, when the 5 murderers murdered, they were juveniles, 16 and 17 years old. It was called When Kids Get Life and you can apparently watch it on-line at Frontline's site (although it's 90 minutes long).
For Frontline, it was actually pretty balanced, almost as often as the outraged parents of the no longer juvenile murderers were shown, the grieving parents of the murder victims were shown. It was harrowing on many fronts. I think Eric Jensen actually got a raw deal, but his conviction was down in Douglas County where they are very strict.
As the show pointed out, Colorado was a pioneer in the formation of a juvenile justice system and I was part of that system, as a prosecutor, for 17 months in the late 80s. The juvenile system, as envisioned by Colorado, creates a separate system where juveniles, between 10 and 17 years old inclusive are adjudicated delinquent as opposed to convicted of a crime. When they turned 18, their juvenile record was sealed and they started their adult criminal career with a clean slate. It was, in a literal sense, real crime without real punishment. I didn't care what the sentences were; nor, after a few months, was I interested in getting a successful adjudication of a juvenile. There was a lot of information about each of them who had been adjudicated a delinquent, including counseling and reports about their family life, etc. Not just the facts of the crime, or crimes (and some of them had a whole bunch of them--one young man had 18 aggravated robberies). What I became interested in was tagging, with an adult felony conviction, the guys who looked like they were headed for a career in crime. If they were still sentenced as if they were a juvie--that was OK, at least we had the first strike of the three we needed to put them away for life (or most of it) if they persisted in their criminal ways. (That was the habitual criminal law, or the 'bitch' as we called it--there was the big bitch--life-- which took three felonies, ideally at least one of them violent (home burglary counted) and the little bitch (25 years), which took just two felonies). Most states have a grand jury which hears a case early on and delivers an indictment or no true bill, but most crimes in Colorado reach the Court system through the filing of an information which is an indictment by other means, the DA just writes it up. We could do the same thing to a juvenile by direct filing in the District Court. I believe I did the most of any deputy DA in Denver, but there may have been guys behind me who did more.
A direct file against a juvenile for any form of first degree murder (including felony murder) apparently takes away the ability of the judge hearing the case to give a juvenile sentence--the only sentence available for any conviction of first degree murder was life without the possibility of parole. (That's been changed lately for juvenile murderers to 40 years which automatically means at most 20 years under Colorado law). That's harsh, man, but then again so is murdering someone.
There's always the Executive Clemency Advisory Board.
For Frontline, it was actually pretty balanced, almost as often as the outraged parents of the no longer juvenile murderers were shown, the grieving parents of the murder victims were shown. It was harrowing on many fronts. I think Eric Jensen actually got a raw deal, but his conviction was down in Douglas County where they are very strict.
As the show pointed out, Colorado was a pioneer in the formation of a juvenile justice system and I was part of that system, as a prosecutor, for 17 months in the late 80s. The juvenile system, as envisioned by Colorado, creates a separate system where juveniles, between 10 and 17 years old inclusive are adjudicated delinquent as opposed to convicted of a crime. When they turned 18, their juvenile record was sealed and they started their adult criminal career with a clean slate. It was, in a literal sense, real crime without real punishment. I didn't care what the sentences were; nor, after a few months, was I interested in getting a successful adjudication of a juvenile. There was a lot of information about each of them who had been adjudicated a delinquent, including counseling and reports about their family life, etc. Not just the facts of the crime, or crimes (and some of them had a whole bunch of them--one young man had 18 aggravated robberies). What I became interested in was tagging, with an adult felony conviction, the guys who looked like they were headed for a career in crime. If they were still sentenced as if they were a juvie--that was OK, at least we had the first strike of the three we needed to put them away for life (or most of it) if they persisted in their criminal ways. (That was the habitual criminal law, or the 'bitch' as we called it--there was the big bitch--life-- which took three felonies, ideally at least one of them violent (home burglary counted) and the little bitch (25 years), which took just two felonies). Most states have a grand jury which hears a case early on and delivers an indictment or no true bill, but most crimes in Colorado reach the Court system through the filing of an information which is an indictment by other means, the DA just writes it up. We could do the same thing to a juvenile by direct filing in the District Court. I believe I did the most of any deputy DA in Denver, but there may have been guys behind me who did more.
A direct file against a juvenile for any form of first degree murder (including felony murder) apparently takes away the ability of the judge hearing the case to give a juvenile sentence--the only sentence available for any conviction of first degree murder was life without the possibility of parole. (That's been changed lately for juvenile murderers to 40 years which automatically means at most 20 years under Colorado law). That's harsh, man, but then again so is murdering someone.
There's always the Executive Clemency Advisory Board.
Labels: Frontline; Juvenile Justice System
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 5:27 PM 
