April 15, 2008
Homicidal teens are just misunderstood
There have been a spate of editorials and articles in the local fish wrap lately, urging Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten to prosecute Brandon McInerney as a juvenile, not an adult, for the murder of Larry King.
Sunday's paper featured an opinion piece from Neil Quinn, a former high-ranking public defender who represented another juvenile killer, Tony Throop, who sits in prison, sentenced as an adult to life behind bars.
Quinn's essay was a high-falutin' attack on the very concept of prosecuting juveniles in the adult system, with allegations that the D.A. put justice on the backburner in favor of some barbaric, unduly punitive legal maneuvers.
When justice is sought, it is immoral to knowingly allow the result to rest on a lie. Like a bitter root added to a stew, a falsehood that underlies a criminal judgment taints the result and renders it unacceptable, no matter the other ingredients.
When prosecutors argue that we can tell by a child's crime that he is beyond hope and he should bear responsibility for his crime in the exact same fashion as if he were an adult, such arguments are "misguided" for the simple reason that they rest on falsehood.
We know, and have always known, that children are subject to poor choices, bad influences and bad judgment, but they usually grow up. Law and society have recognized this in innumerable ways in age-related restrictions on driving, marrying, contracting, having sex, owning a gun, drinking, voting, fighting in a war and virtually any other activity with serious consequences.
We even have laws that increase the punishment when a defendant involves a minor in a crime. Why? Because we know the truth that minors are subject to undue influence and don't have an adult capacity to appreciate the consequences of their conduct. We recognize the truth that children are different from adults in every other context, so why must prosecutors ignore this truth? Would you give your child a gun, alcohol and keys to a car and think that it would be safe because you told him to "act responsibly"?
Ventura County prosecutors recently decided to treat a child three weeks into his 14th year as an adult, to be judged as if he were an adult, as if he were not a child. Envision your child (or any child) on his 14th birthday, in junior high school. One need not be an expert to know that this child has a lot of growing up to do. Do we really want a legal system where prosecutors are free to ignore this fundamental truth?
There is a tendency for people to defer to the "experts." Prosecutors sometimes clothe themselves in this "expert" guise and ask citizens, unfamiliar with the law and the facts, to assume they are doing the "right thing." After all, prosecutors are supposed to represent the "people."
I suppose that I could clothe myself with a similar claim of expertise. I have worked in the criminal justice system for about 25 years. I have defended many young offenders and know firsthand the thoughtlessness that is connected with youthful crime. I even wrote some motions long ago in the Throop case, arguing — prior to the recent Supreme Court opinion — that sentencing a minor to die in prison without any hope of parole is cruel and unusual punishment.
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But to cast this question as one to be debated and resolved by experts is fundamentally wrong. We do not defer to experts for our moral reasoning. Any parent is sufficiently expert to know that children are not adults.
Sometimes it is just that simple. We have two parallel criminal justice systems — one for adults, the other for children. To say that a 14-year-old deserves to be in the adult system is to put the bitter root of a falsehood into the mix at the very beginning. No palatable justice can come of it.
While Quinn tells us that "Prosecutors ignore a fundamental truth," he glosses over several truths himself.
Throop was 17 when he murdered his victims, old enough to know the difference between right and wrong; mature enough to consider the implications of his actions before he took a rifle out of the trunk and returned to the party; intelligent enough to recognize that the people at whom he was taking aim had a right to live.
And yet he pulled the trigger anyhow, more than once, in a series of cold, calculating, premeditated acts, and murdered two men.
It gladdens my heart that Mr. Quinn is so impressed by Throop's literary skills; it appears that the man had used the intervening 17 years since his crimes to improve himself, arguably changing for the better.
Rolando Martinez and Javier Ramirez haven't done so well.
They're still dead.
So forgive me if the ashes-and-sackcloth routine leaves me dry-eyed and hard-hearted when it comes to Throop's fate. He got his break when the jury decided not to sentence him to death, a decision one juror said was directly influenced by the killer's age.
As to the lament that "Prosecutors ignore fundamental truths," it strikes me that there are certain truths that undercut Quinn's plea for mercy, amongst them the existence of evil, acts of undeniable cruelty, and the irrevocable -- and irredeemable -- nature of certain crimes and those who commit them.
While Quinn reminds us over and over and over again that Brandon McInerney is 14, McInerney -- like Throop -- will see 17 and beyond.
Larry King, however, won't celebrate another birthday, won't have an opportunity to receive plaudits for his intellectual growth, his writing, his wit and good humor. Like Rolando Martinez and Javier Ramirez, he'll remain unmentioned in countless letters written on behalf of a killer.
Because Brandon McInerney fired a bullet into Larry's brain. Because Larry King was gay. And then as Larry lay bleeding on the classroom floor, he fired again, because one bullet just wasn't enough.
That McInerney could kill a classmate in cold blood, in front of a room of his fellow teens, doesn't strike me as immature; rather, it seems to be cruel, cold, calculating, the very personification of evil.
Why did the California legislature, as liberal a bunch of poltroons as has governed anywhere in the U.S., given prosecutors the ability to prosecute McInerney as an adult?
Because even as craven a bunch as the politicians in Sacramento are repulsed by the increasing violence, the ruthlessness we see coming from our juvenile defendants.
And so, in order to protect society and perhaps deter others, prosecutors are given the discretion to seek the longer sentences, the harsher penalties that come with adult prosecutions.
Unlike Quinn, I'm not confident that killers like Throop and McInerney would be reformed by the time the juvenile system forced their release back into society while still in their mid-twenties, back into our neighborhoods while still young and strong.
Because, you see, that's the truth of the matter: the term of confinement for juveniles is often laughably brief, serving neither to adequately punish nor deter the most savage of crimes -- and criminals.
It's telling that, along with Quinn's failure to mention the victims, he also neglects to tell readers that Throop would have served only eight years for killing two men, shaving decades off his sentence, just because he was a few months away from turning 18.
And McInerney would do just eleven years in the Youth Authority for killing Lary King.
Is that fair? Is that just?
For all the talk of wasted youth, I prefer a more evenhanded approach.
McInerney and Throop -- and all other murderers who have found their blood-soaked calling while still in their tender youth -- can escape the confines of their prison cells the same day their victims can escape the confines of the grave -- but not a day sooner.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 15, 2008 09:48 PM
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Comments
Defense attorney Quinn speaks with forked tongue. Quinn has spent a career as a mouthpiece for those who have preyed on society. While I have no idea about Quinn's capabilities as a lawyer, he is clearly a lightweight as a human being.
Posted by: Jeb at April 16, 2008 07:12 AM
Mr. Quinn's arguments are offensive to every prosecutor who works in Ventura County since we know that is where the comments were directed.
Yes-I am a DDA here in Ventura. I do not know anything more about this case than what has been in the paper. I have no comment about whether the decisison to prosecute this individual as an adult is a good one, a bad one or anything else.
What I do KNOW about the decisions that are made is that there are many, many facets considered. If you think for one minute Neil that this decision is being made lightly or without thought to all of your arguments you are an idiot.
I have sat through many a meeting on many a difficult case while decisions have been agonozied over. The decisions are not made quickly or lightly. But, you know what? Someone has to make those difficult decisions. As prosecutors we have to think about all kinds of things that you NEVER have to worry about on the other side. We have to think about victims, deterrence, consequences, and yes even your clients' rights. Being a prosecutor is a very difficult job and you should not belittle it with op-ed pieces in the paper suggesting that the reasons that decisions are made are anything else than people trying to use their best judgement under tremendously difficult circumstances.
Sleep well tonight Mr. Quinn. You are safe because you live in a county where the DAs care, the jury pools care, and people are still held accountable for their actions.
Posted by: RW at April 16, 2008 10:39 PM
When you (Mike Lief that is) say,
"So forgive me if the ashes-and-sackcloth routine leaves me dry-eyed and hard-hearted when it comes to Throop's fate. He got his break when the jury decided not to sentence him to death, a decision one juror said was directly influenced by the killer's age."
I'm interested to hear how that was a "break" since by 2005, in Roper v. Simmons, the US Supremes had ruled that the death penalty cannot be imposed on a juvenile. Once that decision was handed down, even if the Court subsequently reverses itself, Throop could no longer be subjected to the ultimate penalty. So the only apparent benefit he got was that a sentence, which could never have been carried out, was not imposed.
Not much of a break.
Posted by: BullButz at April 21, 2008 09:22 PM
BullButz --
In a perfect world, the 14 years between Throop's conviction and the Supreme Court's decision to act as an unelected super-legislature and ban executions for Throop and his ilk would have presented plenty of time to execute the death sentence.
If I remember correctly, the average time between death sentence and dirt nap in Texas is about eight years.
So, in some concrete sense, the jurors' decision to spare Throop the death penalty may have saved his life, even if the odds of a California convict actually being executed in anything less than 25 years are infinitesimally small.
Hell, Texas practically had enough time to kill him twice!
Posted by: Mike Lief at April 21, 2008 09:47 PM