Three years after the Supreme Court offered a second chance to some 2,000 juvenile lifers, about 400 have been freed and hundreds more have shortened sentences.
Locked up for life at 15, Norman Brown remains defined by the crime that put him behind bars.
Twenty-seven years ago, Brown joined a neighbor twice his age to rob a Chesterfield, Missouri, jewelry shop, and the man shot the owner to death. The shooter was executed. But state officials, bound by a 2016 Supreme Court ruling, pledged to give Brown an opportunity for release — then rejected parole in a process a judge ruled recently must be overhauled.
Three years after the Supreme Court gave inmates like Brown a chance at freedom, about 400 offenders sentenced to life without parole as juveniles have been released nationwide and hundreds more have gotten shortened sentences. But most remain behind bars, and amid tensions over how to handle some of these cases, lawsuits have been filed in states like Missouri.
« States are moving away from these sentences, » said Jody Kent Lavy of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. But « there are still some outliers that in many ways are refusing to comply with the court’s mandate. »
Missouri lawmakers decided the more than 100 inmates serving life for adolescent crimes would get a parole hearing after 25 years. But the board has denied release in 85 percent of cases and failed to consider offenders’ rehabilitation efforts, a lawsuit by the MacArthur Justice Center alleges.
The board’s actions violate the constitutional requirement that inmates be provided a « realistic opportunity for release, » a federal judge wrote in October, ordering changes. Missouri’s corrections agency and attorney general’s office declined comment.
In an interview from prison, Brown, now 42, recounted his 1991 crime and said he hopes officials will recognize his remorse and his work in a prison hospice and training rescue dogs.
