While the Supreme Court’s ruling that their sentences were unconstitutional didn’t seek to justify what they did, it did seek to recognize that sometimes kid criminals are victims, too — of their environment, of peer pressure — in ways that adults are not. And so before deciding that a teenage offender is an incorrigible person who will never change, the court must first carefully consider a host of mitigating factors, as in whether they were abused or mentally retarded, that may have led them to spiral into crime in the first place.
“What [the ruling] really means at the end of the day is that we know that kids are more capable of rehabilitation, and they should have a second chance,” says Elizabeth Henneke, the juvenile justice policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. www.houstonpress.com/news/sorry-for-life-ashley-ervin-didn-t-kill-anyone-but-she-drove-home-the-boys-who-did-8064300
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