In “Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor,” Jodie and I wrote about the cruelty of life sentences that must be served without the benefit of parole.. In the essay “The Crime Victims Movement,” we said that “a life sentence without parole is not mercy. It is a slower form of execution. Lifers suffer perpetual torment. They suffer each day simply for the sake of suffering, simply to appease revenge. Natural life surpasses death in its cruelty. Those who demand that unending punishment are either ignorant of its effect on inmates or they have lost all capacity for mercy.”

The Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit law organization with offices in Montgomery, Alabama and New York City, uses the term “a death in prison sentence” to describe juveniles – children actually – who have been tried as adults in the American court system and sentenced to mandatory life sentences without the benefit of parole. In its 2007 study, “Cruel and Unusual: Sentencing13- and 14-Year-Old Children to Die in Prison,” EJI identified more than 2,225 juveniles, age 17 or younger, who have been sentence to life terms without parole eligibility to U.S. prisons. EJI reported that at least 73 of these cases involved children who were 13 and 14 years of age when “condemned to die in prison.”

Let’s context this issue: 13 and 14 year old children in this country cannot drive a car, watch an R-rated horror movie by themselves, legally buy cigarettes or drink beer, legally get married, can work only limited hours after school, or exercise a litany of other social rights enjoyed by adults. But they can be tried, convicted, and sentenced as adults in the American judicial system. The United States, according to EJI, is the only country in the world known to have incarcerated a 13-year-old in an adult prison with a life sentence without the benefit of parole. The Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child [ratified by every nation in the world except the United States and Somalia] have unequivocally rejected laws that allow juveniles to be sentenced to life sentences without the benefit of parole eligibility. The Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has observed that a life sentence without the possibility of parole imposed on children “could constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Worst yet, the United States was only one nation that opposed a United Nations General Assembly resolution that called for the abolition of the death penalty and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of their crimes. This puts America is in a league of its own with its near-patriotic lust for revenge. This nation now incarcerates more people per capita than any country in the world. Americans love to kill and punish – even its most deprived and disadvantaged children.

The EJI report stated that “most of the children who have been sentenced to die in prison at 13 or 14 come from violent and dysfunctional backgrounds. They have been physically and sexually abused, neglected, and abandoned; their parents are prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics, and crack dealers; they grew up in lethally violent, extremely poor areas where health and safety were luxuries their families could not afford.

“’[Y]outh is more than a chronological fact … it is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and psychological damage.’ During 2005, approximately 899,000 children in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico were determined to be victims of abuse or neglect. More than 60% of victims suffered neglect, 14% suffered physical abuse, 10% suffered sexual abuse, an 7% were victims of emotional maltreatment. An estimated 1460 child died due to child or neglect in 2005—a rate of 1.96 deaths per 100,000. More than 40% of child fatalities were attributed to neglect, while physical abuse also was a major contributor to child deaths. Nearly 80% of perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents , and another 6.8% were other relatives of the child victim.

“Children sentenced to die in prison have in common the disturbing failure of police, family courts, child protection agencies, foster systems, and health care providers to treat and protect them. Their crimes occur in the midst of crisis, often resulting from desperate, misguided attempts to protect themselves.”

Granted, the crimes committed by some of these young people were extremely horrific. One of the essays in “Capital Punishment” is entitled “Youth Violence.” It conveyed a measure of the terrible harm some of our damaged children have inflict upon our society. We pointed out that “ … thirty-nine states have adopted policies of jailing the young in adult prisons with life sentences and no benefit of parole, according to a study by Northwestern University Law School’s Children and Family Justice Center and the John Howard Association. These states—almost the entire Union—now incarcerate approximately 2,300 “kid lifers.” Illinois enacted its kid-lifer law twenty years ago, but it has recently joined with California, Florida, Michigan, and Nebraska in trying to change it.

“States should not be in the business of warehousing human beings for 40, 50, or even 60 years, long after brain maturation has probably ended their violent tendencies. To avoid the staggering costs of incarcerating youthful offenders for a half-century or more, the nation must rescue children victimized by domestic violence, sexual abuse, and drug abuse.

“Juvenile predators mirror the soul of the society that produced them. They are born innocent. Society and circumstance transform them into predators. Public rants from law-and-order politicians and hate-filled demands for vengeance by crime victims’ advocates are not the answer. They only fuel the cycle of violence.”

The bottom line on this issue is this: “a death in prison sentence” is far more cruel and unusual than a death sentence by lethal injection. The tragic case of Joe Sullivan exemplifies this point of contention.

Joe Sullivan is one of two individuals who, as thirteen-year-old children, received life sentences without the benefit of parole for an offense in which the victim did not die. EJI research has uncovered only eight other cases in six states where a 13-year-old was condemned to die in prison with a life sentence without parole eligibility for crimes of murder. Joe Sullivan was just 13 years of age when joined with two older boys to commit a burglary in the State of Florida. The youngster had endured a rough life before embarking upon a brief career in crime. He was born mentally disabled and subjected regular physical and sexual abuse throughout his life. Perhaps it was these terrible life experiences that made him so gullible. The house burglary, suggested by the older teens, seemed the natural thing to do. The owner, Lena Bruner, was not at home when the boys broke into her residence and stole her money and jewelry. They left. Sometime later that same day an assailant entered Mr. Bruner’s residence, found her home, and raped her. She never saw the attacker. One of the older boys pointed a finger at Joe as the rapist. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life without parole as an adult. It wasn’t much of a trial or a defense. His lawyer did not make an opening statement or his closing argument was no more than several pages in length.

Joe Sullivan is now 33 years old. He has served 20 years on the life sentence the State of Florida gave him – probably for a crime one of the older boys actually committed. Attorneys for EJI, led by its Executive Director Barry A. Stevenson, recently asked the United States Supreme Court to review the issue of whether practice of imposing life sentences on 13 and 14 year olds is “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The EJI attorneys find themselves seeking relief before the nation’s highest court because courts in the state of Florida turned a deaf ear to their cruel and unusual punishment arguments.

Unless he receives some kind of relief in the judicial system or executive clemency, both of which are highly unlikely, Joe Sullivan could spend as many as 60 years in prison for a crime in which no one was killed. I spent more than 40 years in the Louisiana prison system for a murder committed during a botched robbery attempt. It was a tough row to hoe – and Joe has already served half that amount and didn’t kill anyone. No state in America has carried out the execution of a condemned murderer that could possibly compare to the cruelty Joe Sullivan has, and will, endure in prison before he dies. Even assuming his guilt for the offense for which he was convicted, a rational argument can be made that Joe Sullivan has already paid a sufficient enough debt to warrant his return to society.

Joe Sullivan’s case not only begs but screams for mercy and justice. But chances are neither will come. He will grow old and die in prison. The State of Florida has a point to prove: it will punish children – especially those from the ranks of racial minorities and socially disadvantaged – more severely than adults when those kids commit horrific crimes that their own undeveloped brains cannot comprehend or those consequences they cannot foresee..