She is a 76-year old woman, a cancer survivor, and caretaker for her 94-year old mother. She spent 16 years in prison for distributing heroin before being released to house arrest last year. Her name is Gwen Levi, and she was doing well – until she didn’t answer a phone call from her parole officer because she was in a computer class she hoped would lead to employment. Now she’s back in jail because she didn’t take the call, considered a violation of parole by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Brett Jones was 15 when he fatally stabbed his grandfather during an argument in 2004. He was sentenced to life without parole. Jones recently argued before the Supreme Court that on the basis of two prior Supreme Court decisions, the sentencing judge in his case should have found that he was incapable of rehabilitation before imposing life without parole. But in April, the Supreme Court, with Justice Kavanaugh writing the majority opinion, ruled 6-3 that a defendant can be sentenced to life without parole for a homicide committed as a juvenile without a separate finding of permanent incorrigibility.
There are more than 2,000 child offenders serving life without parole sentences in U.S. prisons for crimes committed before the age of 18, and a few kids are on death row. We are one of only a few countries in the world that permit children who commit crimes to be sentenced to prison forever, without any possibility of release.
Robert DuBoise is among the lucky few who are finally released on the basis of DNA evidence. He served 37 years for a rape and murder that he did not commit. Many others like him spend years of their lives behind bars and on death row.
According to the ACLU more than 3200 people are serving serious time for nonviolent offenses like stealing a jacket or serving as middleman in the sale of $10 of marijuana. An estimated 65% of them are Black. Many of them struggled with mental illness, drug dependency or financial desperation when committing their crimes. Others languish in jail, unindicted, for lack of bail money.
From the lowest courts to federal courts to the Supreme Court, the legal system and its courts seem to be more criminal than just when it comes to “criminal justice,” a system allegedly designed to deliver “justice for all.” The system encompasses law enforcement, courts, and corrections, including the juvenile justice system. But that system is clearly broken, and a huge number of lives are affected by flaws in the system in profound and disturbing ways.
The justice system can’t be reformed without understanding that this is a political as well as an institutional problem. For starters, during the Trump presidency, three conservative justices were seated on the Supreme Court. The senators who confirmed them represented less than half of the national electorate, and let us remember, the president who appointed them was impeached twice. Over the last four-plus decades Democrats held the presidency for half that time during which they appointed four justices to SCOTUS. Republicans have held the presidency for slightly longer and have appointed 11 justices.
This isn’t just about our judiciary systems and their flaws. It’s about a real crisis that threatens our democracy. It’s not the first time we’ve faced that existential threat. Scholars point out that as early as the 1790s and into the 19th century as well as the 20th, fears about the demise of our democracy led to political action, for better or worse, as Thomas Keck wrote in the Washington Post.
Now the Supreme Court’s new Voting Rights Act “could gut civil rights protections,” Keck said, pointing out that “throughout U.S. history…the court itself has been perceived as a barrier to democratic preservation and renewal.” That is clear now given the gerrymandering, voter suppression, and filibuster arguments we face.
Among state legislatures posing threats to our democracy, none is more egregious than Arizona, which made it harder for minorities to vote, weakening the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The worst of it is that the conservative Supreme Court upheld the Arizona law, causing Justice Elena Kagan to write, “What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting’”.
Thankfully, President Biden has appointed a presidential commission on Supreme Court reform. It will consider calls for term limits, expanding the number of justices on the court, and removing some issues from the court’s purview.
A commission report regarding the Supreme Court won’t cure all the injustices in our legal systems, but we can hope they will signal a start to meaningful reform. Otherwise, the blindfolded lady with the scales of justice on her shoulders might as well step off her pedestal. The rest of us can do little more than advocate, educate and vote smart in hopes that we can right the wrongs of a so-called “criminal justice system’. It’s the least we can do for incarcerated children and innocents on death row.