Former Senator Alan Simpson has this op-ed in the WaPo on the Graham and Sullivan cases now before SCOTUS. He discusses his own delinquent youth and why we need to give juvenile offenders a shot at redemption. Unfortunately, he completely fails to grasp the difference between typical delinquency and intentional crimes of great violence.
Simpson says, "When I was a teen, we rode aimlessly around town, shot things up, started fires and generally raised hell. It was only dumb luck that we never really hurt anyone." No, it wasn't only dumb luck. It was partly luck but mostly because they weren't trying to hurt anyone. There is a huge difference between reckless conduct that might hurt someone and Joe Sullivan's forcible rape of a helpless elderly woman,* the culmination of 17 crimes over 2 years.
Sure, what Simpson says is true of most delinquent juveniles, but not all. Life without parole needs to be available for the rare exceptions.
Simpson says, "When I was a teen, we rode aimlessly around town, shot things up, started fires and generally raised hell. It was only dumb luck that we never really hurt anyone." No, it wasn't only dumb luck. It was partly luck but mostly because they weren't trying to hurt anyone. There is a huge difference between reckless conduct that might hurt someone and Joe Sullivan's forcible rape of a helpless elderly woman,* the culmination of 17 crimes over 2 years.
Sure, what Simpson says is true of most delinquent juveniles, but not all. Life without parole needs to be available for the rare exceptions.
* And don't fall for his lawyer's propaganda that the other kid did it and fingered Sullivan. His identification as the perpetrator was well corroborated. See CJLF Brief, p. 3.
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