It is difficult to find empathy for a 17-year-old and 16-year-old who use a gun to threaten trick-or-treaters and steal their candy.
But as society attempts to determine the proper balance between punishment and justice, it is time for the nation to re-examine the mandatory sentencing guidelines that were de rigueur in the 1990s. That is the message from the state Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled last week that judges should take into account a criminal’s age in handing down sentences for juveniles.
On Halloween night 2012 in Tacoma, Zyion Houston-Sconiers and Treson Roberts robbed trick-or-treaters at gunpoint, netting a cellphone and 96 pieces of candy. For that, they were handed sentences of 31 years and 26 years in prison by a Pierce County Superior Court judge who said his hands were tied by the state’s sentencing statutes. With Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud writing in the opinion that, “Children are different,” the Supreme Court said the previous court did, indeed, have some leeway and opted to send Houston-Sconiers and Roberts back for new sentencing hearings.
The decision is reasonable and necessary. While Houston-Sconiers and Roberts deserve punishment, sentences that could keep them in prison until well into their 40s would be particularly draconian for crimes that resulted in no injuries. Meanwhile, the case should lead the Legislature to reconsider the state’s sentencing guidelines for juvenile offenders.
Those guidelines were established as part of a crackdown on crime during the Clinton administration, when many states and the federal government adopted no-tolerance laws buoyed by the premise that some criminals were beyond redemption. Hillary Clinton, then the first lady, expressed the opinion of many at the time by using the phrase “super-predator” and saying “we have to bring them to heel.” Clinton’s broad characterization of young black males became an issue during last year’s presidential campaign, and she said she regretted the remarks.
Notably, John Dilulio, a scholar who was a leading proponent of the “super-predator” theory, also regrets his comments from years ago. More recently, he has said the focus should be on crime prevention more than upon punishment.
For a variety of reasons, crime rates have dropped precipitously in recent decades. Despite a small uptick the past two years — and despite inaccurate assertions by President Donald Trump — the murder rate in the United States is about half of what it was in the mid-1990s. Strong sentencing guidelines likely have played a role in that decline, but at the same time they have irrevocably harmed minority communities that are especially targeted by such policies.
This is particularly troubling when dealing with juvenile offenders. As Gordon McCloud wrote in last week’s decision: “We see no way to avoid the Eighth Amendment requirement to treat children differently, with discretion, and with consideration of mitigating factors.”
The goal must be to protect the public, yet such protection must be tempered with a sense of justice. In 2014, the Legislature allowed for the reconsideration of life sentences for inmates who committed crimes as juveniles. And now, lawmakers should consider House Bill 1743, which would extend the age of jurisdiction for the juvenile justice system to 25.
That would not mean that all of those accused of crimes under the age of 25 would be treated as juveniles; it simply means that the nature of the crime would play a role in how that crime is prosecuted. That, in the end, is what justice is all about.
