Compassion in Juvenile Sentencing

Like many people, I was intrigued by the photos of Cheryl Armstrong with the dogs in prison. I have never visited a prison in Colorado, and I didn’t know anything about the dog training program that was established a number of years ago. I asked Cheryl about it and this is what she wrote to me:

“For almost two years of my incarceration I was on the dog program. The program actually got its start with 5 dogs at my facility over 6 years ago. It quickly expanded to 15 people here and is now in numerous facilities in Colorado. The [inmates'] beds are raised up so a kennel can fit under them. There are two types of dogs that come through the program — rescued dogs who are homeless and adopted out (after being trained), and dogs whose families have paid for them to be trained. Each inmate has one dog in her cell and her job is to train it. A dog is here 4-6 weeks, usually. (more…)

I asked Cheryl Armstrong (her story is here) what kind of life she imagined for herself, if she were to be released from prison. This is what she said:

The kind of life outside I picture myself living & things I’ve grown to know…

When I get out of prison, I picture myself living a simple but productive life. I want to end up building a career for myself that corresponds with my life experience and educational background. I would like to help teach others by (more…)

Cheryl Armstrong is currently serving a 96 year sentence in the Colorado Womens Prison. Her story is here. I asked Cheryl Armstrong,  if she was inspired by anyone. This is what she told me:

I always say that very few people have truly inspired me in my life, but as I evolve spiritually, I’m finding that even the people I don’t care much for who don’t care much for me can be inspiring. This is because I’ve changed how I (more…)

Cheryl Armstrong is serving a 96-year sentence in Canon City, Colorado for two counts of second degree murder. She did not kill anyone, but drove the getaway car and was accused of being the “mastermind” in a double homicide in 1995 when she was 16 years old. Cheryl is now 29.

I’ve written to Cheryl and she agreed to allow me to post her responses to questions I’ve asked about her life in prison. The following was what she told me when I asked if she found things to be grateful for.

The first thing I did when I opened my eyes this morning was simply to tell God “Thank You.” I have begun to make this a normal practice throughout my days also. It really is amazing how much it was so easy to see the negative in (more…)

When I decided to start this blog, I told myself that the best thing I could do to participate in the dialogue about juvenile cases and juvenile sentencing would be to learn about the law, about the impending changes and about the cases, but I wanted to keep a distance from those who’d been convicted of the crimes. I thought that getting to know the human beings behind the newspaper articles and the case files and the sentences would be too difficult on an emotional level.

I’ve found that separating this issue from the people is not as easy as I thought it would be. The Frontline special, “When Kids Get Life” put five real faces and voices on Jacob Ind, Nathan Ybanez, Erik Jensen, Trevor Jones and Andy Medina. I read Mary Ellen Johnson’s book, “The Murder of Jacob” to learn more about his story. I’ve written and received two letters from Jacob, each exchange bringing me to a deeper understanding of who he is today and what his life is like. The Rolling Stone article about Nate Ybanez provided a far more detailed history of his story. I learned about Cheryl Armstrong on The Pendulum Foundation site and subsequently spoke with her mother.

Today I received a letter from Cheryl Armstrong and she has become very real to me. I will talk more about this in a future post.

When I began writing this blog, I had assumptions about how the judicial system worked, but I never understood how gray so much of what happens is. The cases that caught my attention are all high profile, highly publicized cases because of the age of the offenders and because of the nature of the crimes.

I’ve learned that the justice system and the laws that govern it can be profoundly impacted by politics, perceived public opionion and of course by the media.

I’ve learned that most of those who’ve been locked away as children have been largely forgotten. The lucky ones have one or two people who stand behind them and support them. The unlucky ones have been forgotten by even their families.

This brings me to the Colorado Governor’s Juvenile Clemency Board. It was widely publicized when in August of 2007, Governor Ritter established the Juvenile Clemency Board. It’s difficult for someone like me, without a background in politics or the law to piece together how these things work, but I’ve learned that each state governor establishes his or her own approach to clemency. Each new governor creates his or her own criteria, and each offender who is eligible may apply for clemency, which can result in a number of possible outcomes.

The new application and the criteria to apply to the Juvenile Clemency Board are available for download here.

If a prisoner is granted clemency, it may result in a pardon and immediate release. This is very rare. What is more likely is that a prisoner may be granted commutation of a long sentence, which may or may not result in release or conditional release.

This sounds good, but someone serving a life sentence may have his sentence commuted to forty years before possibility of parole. Forty years is better than life, but not much.

What are the chances that a clemency application might be approved? Nobody knows. Each board is newly formed and reinventing the wheel, so to speak. There are no precedents. There are lots of concerns about applying for clemency, especially about going first. Nobody wants to be a test case. Governor Ritter is a former Denver District Attorney. Is a prisoner who was convicted while Governor Ritter was the prosecutor less likely to be granted clemency than a prisoner who was tried by another DA? Jeanne Smith, a member of the clemency board is a former District Attorney for El Paso County. If she reviews a clemency application that she also happened to prosecute, would that have an impact on how that offender’s application for clemency is handled?

Offenders and their family members have to weigh many questions that have no clear answers. Is it better to wait to apply for clemency under a new governor if you were convicted by the current governor?

Is the risk of having a sentence commuted to a lower, but still excessive number of years too great to risk applying for clemency?

Most of the offenders are indigent and cannot afford to retain attorneys so these are decisions they’re left to work through on their own.

I was foolish enough to think I could become involved in this issue without allowing myself to care about these people who now are trying to determine how to approach an application for clemency. The sad thing is that I’m not qualified to help them. I don’t even know who can.

Victims and victims’ families have the opportunity to present information urging that the governor deny clemency during this process. Supporters of the offenders also have the opportunity to speak on their behalf.

I’ve scoured the internet and there is no paper or article that I can find that talks about the pros and cons and issues that an offender should consider prior to applying for clemency.

If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas about things the candidates for clemency should consider, please comment or email me.

Cheryl Armstrong is serving a 96-year sentence for two counts of second degree murder. She did not kill anyone, but drove the getaway car and was accused of being the “mastermind” in a double homicide in 1995 when she was 16 years old.

I spoke with Cheryl’s mother, Carol Johann yesterday about Cheryl and about her case. Cheryl’s parents moved from the Denver area to Canon City in order to be near the prison so they can visit their daughter. Carol told me that Cheryl will be 63 years old before she is eligible for parole.

The following are Cheryl’s words, originally posted on the Pendulum Foundation website. At her mother’s request, I’ve updated the length of time of Cheryl’s incarceration and I’ve noted that she completed her associates degree in November. She is currently pursuing a bachelors degree.

My name is Cheryl Armstrong, and I am serving a 96-year sentence for two counts of second degree murder. I did not kill anyone, but drove the getaway car and was accused of being the “mastermind” in a double homicide in 1995 when I was 16 years old. I have now been incarcerated for almost 13 years. Today, I am an entirely different person from the girl who was involved in a horrible tragedy that destroyed so many people’s lives. I know for a fact that I learned from my mistakes - they changed my life and helped turn me into the person I’ve become today. Every day for the rest of my life, I will feel horrible about what I was involved in when I was 16. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my victims and the pain I’ve caused their families - and my own. The words “I’m sorry” do no justice to how remorseful I am now, although I am so very sorry for the pain their families suffer.

Since I have been incarcerated, I have completely changed in numerous ways and am achieving things for myself. I completed my GED in 1995 and have continued my education by completing the Business School program offered at my facility. I have also been taking college classes for the last five years, and I received an Associate of Arts Degree in November of 2007.

Upon my release, I would like to be some sort of counselor for troubled teens. I really want to use my bad experience to try to help others from making the same mistakes that I made. It’s heartbreaking to see so many children that made one horrible mistake get thrown into prison for the rest of their lives, when a huge number of them could be rehabilitated and, more than likely, never re-offend after release from prison.

Looking back, I can’t even believe that it was me who participated in something so atrocious I didn’t even care about my own life then and never took anything seriously. I have always said that I deserve to be in prison for what I did. I do not, however, feel that I should be here for another 80+ years. I have grown up and would NEVER be a threat to society. I have no violence on my record in prison, and that’s because there’s not a violent bone in my body now. I think a 96-year sentence was harsh considering it was my first offense and I actually didn’t commit a violent act.
I have accepted responsibility for my mistakes and learned from them. I would do ANYTHING to get just ONE chance to prove that I’m a changed person and would love to become a productive member of society who could make a difference in our youth’s lives. I pray that I, along with so many others who came to prison as children, will one day get this chance.

ABOUT THE CRIME

In being asked to rehash the terribly tragic event that brought me to prison when I was 16 with a 96-year sentence, the first emotion that comes to mind is sorrow…sorrow for every person affected by our careless actions. I am ashamed of the person I was when I was 15-16 years old. I feel embarrassed and humiliated to talk about my crime, because I am a COMPLETELY different person today. Those emotions, though, are part of the reason why I feel it so important to talk about it now. What my co-defendants and I did was indisputably wrong, but I know from personal experience that what this system is doing to its children is also very wrong. Therefore, I want my story to be heard in hopes that it will help society to see that children don’t belong in prison for the rest of their lives.

As a child, I was very close to my family and had a great childhood. I was an honor roll student until 9th grade and wasvery outgoing in sports and other activities (tennis, swimming, ice skating, girl scouts, etc.). My dad was a violent man, and my mom left him for good when I was two years old. I grew up visiting him less and less as I got older. I never got into any trouble until I was 14 years old. I grew up in real small towns, but when I was 14 we moved to Littleton, Colorado, and I was exposed to city life for the first time. To this day, I can’t say what was so alluring about the negative things I got drawn into. I think, at first, I just wanted to make new friends in a new place, and I obviously picked the wrong people to associate with. I started doing drugs, and for the next two years it all went downhill from there.

All this anger appeared from God knows where. I became a very bitter child who had no respect for anyone or anything. I wasn’t real violent, but had a horrible energy within me that the simplest thing would trigger. I have only been in two fights in my life, but had a horrible mouth that would say anything without thinking. Since my childhood, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is how much power the words we speak really have in our lives. So many of my words came back to haunt me at my trial and what is so sad about it is that I really did not mean any of them. I would say horrible things (not just where my crime was concerned, but in general) and not even feel the same way five minutes later. Like every other kid I knew, I made idle threats that never carried any real intention. We all spoke that way so frequently that it really did seem completely normal, although now I realize the way we talked was anything but that.

Here’s the truth. There are two victims in my case. One of them had been my boyfriend for about ten months before I got arrested. The second victim was his other girlfriend. I was accused of basically ordering my friends to kill them both on the night of April 17, 1995, as a result of a supposed “jealous rage” due to his leaving me.

Still to this day, it is inconceivable to me how the plot of the story got so absurdly twisted and blown out of proportion. I will never get over the fact that a huge part of my conviction is based on fabricated misconceptions that were created by a prosecutor who was politically motivated to get a conviction to further his own career. Denver was “cracking down” on gang and teen violence that year, and I was the example used to show that if you make one huge mistake, you’re going to rot in prison for the rest of your life. The prosecutor was running for DA soon after my trial and was hell-bent beyond reason on making me out to be the worst child ever born. His prosecutorial tactics were cut-throat…some of his prior convictions had even been thrown out due to prosecutorial misconduct. The case was HUGE in the media also, and I was convicted there before I ever went to trial.

Before the crime happened, I had told the victim that I was messing around with someone else besides him. He told me to pick between them, and I picked the other guy. I left HIM - the first of many, many details to get twisted at my trial so I could become what they needed me to be and fall for first-degree murder. Our conversation got ugly, and he threatened to kill me and my mom. Then, I threatened him. He also had his friends call my house and leave threatening messages. These were people in his gang (he was a Blood). I then told one of my friends about it, and he called him on the phone and told him, “You’re dead.” He was a Crip and for this reason alone he never got along with the victim, and vice versa. Every person we know talked like this frequently…no one ever ended up dead.

he next day I was driving around in my car and we were bored with nothing to do. I said, “Let’s go get him (the victim).” Everyone in the car agreed, so we started to drive to his house. The bottom line is this… I didn’t care what happened that night. It has taken me years to be honest enough to say that. It’s such a horrible thing to say, but it is true. There is a huge difference, though, between being angry and not thinking or caring about the results…and forcing someone to commit murder. I did not have any respect for myself, let along anyone else in the world. My mind had fallen into some dark place and was lost there from the time I was about 15 until at least a year after I was arrested.

Cheryl doesn’t make any excuses for her actions. She made bad decisions and two people are dead. But does her culpability warrant a sentence of 96 years? I’m not proud of the things I was doing when I was sixteen either. I was drinking underage and doing a lot of other things I shouldn’t have been doing too. When I think of the tragedies that could have happened, I shudder. I was lucky.

If Cheryl’s parents were wealthy, they could probably afford the kind of legal representation necessary to pursue lengthy, expensive appeals, but they’re not.

If the purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect the public and punish and rehabilitate the offender, hasn’t justice been served?

Please share your thoughts on Cheryl’s case.