you were falling -- if you were following the anti incarceration activists and you would not know this if you read the briefs before the state supreme court, or before the united states supreme court. this was handed in the spring -- in florida. the question of the supreme court in these places was dictated widely, these were people who committed horrible crimes. the question was whether the sentence took out the possibility of parole and if this was constitutional. they have failed to convince the legislators to abolish this, and they have failed to do this with the supreme court. they have failed to get this

across the country because this was unconstitutional. they are trying to make this constitutional. . people, and all the other judges and justices who look at this to discover a new right. a right which, and i use quotations, a right which will jeopardize all noncapital sentences, potentially. it will essentially a loud judges taken to its illogical extreme to engage in a joke ball on every sentencing of every on every sentencing of every individual before the court has never allowed that and i predict they won't allow that in this case. one of the -- i did not believe my friend in california when she told me that the

anti-incarceration act in these republished reports depicting pictures of eight, nine -year-olds on the front covers of the reports because i knew, as a criminal defense attorney, and prosecutor, and now a sitting judge in the military, that nobody, no state sentences eight or nine -year-olds, tiger scouts essentially, we blows, to life without parole for any crime they permit. they go into the juvenile justice system. and even if, for one reason or another would go to an adult court, if they were 10 or so they will not get life without parole. so much to my surprise, i looked at a few of the report she was talking about. and this is what spurred me to conduct a comprehensive research project. here is a picture, clearly of a little boy.

if i took a poll in this room you would all say he is probably six, seven, eight use old, an actor, not a defendant. get this on the front cover of one of the lead reports that the anti-cars ration act had out there suggesting the legislators and judges, etc., that this poor little fellow, this child committed a crime and is serving life without parole. is not. and look at all of the other reports out there. this is one by the equal justice commission, which is down in, i think it's alabama. here is a picture of an actor, a boy, who probably, you know, plays in his little league baseball squad and probably just ended up playing marbles a few weeks before. but there are numerous pictures throughout these reports of

child actors, which are there to pull your heart strings. they are in these reports to lead people who aren't going to think about it, like some people who have a busy calendar, schedule, busy legislative agenda, that this is typically the type of kid who is sentenced to life without parole. but it gets better. the roper decision is a death penalty decision. and roper himself brought about his client before he committed it, deliberated, and he committed a. and the supreme court found that his death sentence was unconstitutional. but what the anti-incarceration act now has attempted to do is take the language and logic of roper and imported out of the -- into a non-death penalty arena

of life without parole. and they use almost laughable language, like sensing our children to die in prison. it is not a death penalty case. to life without parole case. and if you look, there is a very unsettled coordination between yet well-funded movement suggesting that, they never used the word juvenile, which all of us use in our practices. all the judges use it on all other criminal justices use a. they teenagers. hithe united states has the wort crime problem in the western world. we do. if you look at my report, i look at the un statistics and the world health organization's

statistics to show that we lead the western work in juvenile crime and have done so for decades. juveniles commit murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and other serious crimes in numbers that dwarf those of america's international peers. you see, the campaign so far is essentially wrapped into these principles. all the countries are the same around the world. the u.s. has life without parole. other countries do not. we are in violation of international norms. all countries are essentially the same. these are children. we are mean. and by the way, we are in violation of international treaties. all of which is demonstrably false, and we go through it page by page, chapter by chapter, in this report. in a highly footnoted report. and unlike reports of the other side, we traced back to original sources and tell you everything we consulted and every single footnote in our report.

between 1980 and 2005, 43621 juveniles were arrested for murder in the united states. and the pictures just as bleak with respect to rape, 109,563. robbery, 818,278. and aggravated assault, 1,240,199. that is uncontroverted. yet when you compare the statistics with us against the rest of the world, you see that we dwarf western europe and the rest of the world in terms of our crime statistics. we have a big problem. we could debate and discuss what those problems are and what the roots of it are and how we

should address those, and i think that is an ongoing worthy debate. but the fact are the facts. let me give you an example. this is in chapter three of the paper. in 1998 alone, 24,537,600 reported crimes were committed in the united states. that means i've be 72 countries that reported thei that their statistics to the un that year,

that year was no different than the other years, we ranked first in reported crimes. and back, the united states reported more crimes than the next six countries, germany, england and widows, france, south africa, russia and canada combined. and the picture is just as bleak with respect to juvenile crime. and so it should come as no surprise to any of us in this room, i hope, that states over the years have responded to this explosion in juvenile crime by making some laws applicable to juveniles. and over the years, making it possible for the government and the state to waive or push juveniles from juvenile court to adult court for certa specific heinous crimes like murder, rape, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault and kidnapping, extortion, bob

making, terrorist threats and those things. and for a very small percentage of those, you have the possibility of life without parole for juvenile killers. the other thing that you see, have seen to date is this notion put out by the amnesty international watch which is the lead report in this area that there are 2225 juveniles in the united states serving life without parole. folks, that number is a fallacy. is a manufactured statistic. we go through their very own report, including their footnotes, and show the methodological flaws in their report. first off, it is true, as they know, that there is no one repository within the department

of justice or in each of the 50 states, or district of columbia, that keeps the statistics of how many juveniles are serving without the possibility of parole. now, there is a division in the department of justice that keeps that for 23 states, but not all states. and so, instead of accepting those statistics which is a little over 1100, or so, juveniles serving life without possibility of parole in those 43 states, they manufacture assumptions. they assume for instance, that it takes around two years between the time of arrest to the time somebody gets sent to jail, which we know from our analysis that often times it takes much less time, often months or weeks. many of the juveniles who commit these crimes are caught quickly and take a sentence or a trial quickly and they are sent to jail. yet what you see is this number picked up by the liberal media, pushed before state legislators

when they are trying to abolish the sentence, and put in court documents. in fact, in the brief before the supreme court right now they boldly assert like they did in the torres case that there are 2225 juveniles serving life without the possibility of parole. it is a manufactured statistic. and let me turn finally to the suggestion that we are in violation of international law. and that can be found on page 41. 41, of the report. many proponents for juvenile killers and violent teens suggest that because there's this convention other called a convention of the rights of a child, that's it. there's a convention out there. get banned for life without possibility of parole for juvenile killers and violent teens and they therefore, since

we have it we are in violation of the treaty. well, there is a slight problem with that. we haven't ratified convention of the rights of the child. that would seem to end the discussion, but they don't and their assertions there. they assert that well, even we haven't ratified it, it's customary international law, sort of a last, desperate advocate. and we explain why not only is it not customary international law, why we have no obligation whatsoever to over -- to violate the will of the people as expressed in their state representative and state lawmakers. they also plan that we are in violation of the icc br which is another civil rights treaty and the convention against torture. yet, they fail to mention that we have taken exceptions, called

reservations in international law to the provisions there that would hint at long sentences for juveniles. by the way, neither of those treaties bans life without parole for juveniles at all. i know a little bit about the convention against torture because i was the lead dod delegate to geneva when we submitted our last periodic report into thought and six. so i am intimately familiar with the convention that they say we are in violation of, which we are not. and finally, i will leave you with this. as you can see in the book, we wrote 243 different d.a. officers around the country. we asked for case digest from those d.a. offices around the country where the person got life without also building of parole as a sentence. we asked for original court documents. court findings, judges 90s, police reports, to get an

accurate picture of the real crime in the real facts that these what we found was vastly different than the gloss over, noncallable language they including their reports. i will leave you with one snippet of one of the 16 case studies which is found prominently in some of the activist case reports. that is the case of ashley howe jones. according year-old juvenile. she is the cause celeb of many on the left. -- ashley jones. if you read the description of what she did, your left scratching your head wondering why she got life without the possibility of parole. if you can make up your mind. this is one of many of the cases they have put out there.

this is the entirety of the facts that the anti incarceration activists have put out there. then i will read you the facts found by the judge. "at 14, as we tried to escape the violence and abuse by running away with an older boyfriend who and killed her grandfather and her aunt." that is what as lee did, hen you read the judge'side findings, which can be found on page 26. and i will not read the whole thing. we are running out of time. you find out quite a different story. ashley jones stabbed her father and pregnant mother in 1998, killing neither, and so she and

her younger sister were sent to live with her grandparents and aunt. this was before the event where she got life without parole. in late august of that year, her grandparents were getting tired of her bad behavior and grounded her for staying out all might at a party. they did not approve of her boyfriend, jeremy hart, and told her -- told him not to visit their house, and this made ashley jones angry. and so ashley jones and he decided to kill everyone in the house. set it on fire and take their money. to prepare, ashley jones stole two of her grandfather's guns and smuggle them out of the house today. she mixed together firestarter in anticipation of setting the house ablaze. this is from the judges findings. it took the young couple today to put their plan into action, and on the evening of august 30, 1999, she kept an eye on her relatives until they had settled

in for the evening when she called her boyfriend who arrived around 11:15 at that night and she let him in the house. he was doing the 38 revolver taken from her grandfather. they been snuck into the den where her grandfather was watching tv. hart shot him twice in the face. still alive, he stumbled toward the kitchen. next they visited the bedroom of her aunt and shot her three times. sing that her and was still breathing, ashley judd hitter in the head with a portable heater, stabbed her in the chest and attempted to set the room on fire. the gunshots awakened jones' grandmother and she got out of bed. that was when jones and hart entered the bedroom and shot her once in the shoulder. and with the last bullet jones and then hart return to the den and discovered their grandfather was to live. with nice from the kitchen they stabbed him over and over again and left one knife embedded in his back. these are the judges findings. ashley jones portal lighter

fluid and listen to him groan as he burned alive. the noise attracted jones' tenure old sister, mary. to the kitchen. from acey ducey that her grandfather was burning. soon after the wounded kid called out to her dying husband and ashley jones stabbed her mother in the face with an ice pick, poured lighter fluid on her ancestor on fire and watch her burn. she ended up stabbing her 10 year old sister numerous times and left everyone to die. she then took $300 from her grandparents matters and took the keys to their cadillac and the boyfriend and girlfriend drove off for a fun night of partying. and when the news the next morning, the sister survived and ashley said quote i thought i kill that. she was sentenced to life without the possibility of

parole, and the judge when she sentenced ashley said quote she did not express genuine remorse for her actions, although she apologize her words were hollow and insincere. for the more it was brought to the attention of the court that while awaiting her sins and the defendant has threatened other female inmates in the jefferson county jail by telling them she would do the same thing to them that she had done to her family. these are the facts. they are not pretty. but we need to have now an open, honest and forthright discussion going forward. paul. >> i'm going to talk about some things that my life that i have not spoken about in public before. actually have some questions about you folks out here before i started. i know some people in this group your company of these people by a show of your hand have had

family members murdered? >> how may people here are from brooks are associated with groups that are in favor of having parole for juveniles with life sentences? i don't see anybody responding to that. of the people who have had family members murdered, have any of you ever been approached by these groups that want to change the sentencing structure and to allow parole for juveniles? anybody? one. you are the head of an organization. okay. my experience is this. i start my career in alameda count, a system of very, very aggressive prosecution of crimes. the system of the prosecutors were trained by people, and they

played fair. they weren' were ethical but the tough. when i hear examples of these juveniles who have essentially been not guilty of any major crime and they are sentenced to a life without the possibility of parole, and i see human rights groups and we have to help these children, i am saying yes, help them, help them. and yet i look at the fact that i go wait a minute. these facts can't be right i know some of the prosecutors involved. they would never do that. i know the law, and a kid who never used a gun was given a ten-year enhancement which only comes when you have used the gun so the facts are wrong. and i recognize that the people have done these series of studies on this issue understand what i understand, that there are certain people who have done crimes that are so heinous, that

if they are let out, they will do it again. and i understand that if there are people who are given life without parole who don't deserve it, convicted where they are not really guilty, obviously we have to get them out or help them. that somehow kids act on the life without parole system is an attack on all of us, that it is an attack on people who want to be safe. now, i have been an attorney milewide and when i came home on october 15, 2005, i had been representing a woman who was abused from her late teens years by her therapist. she married him, and 25 years later killed him. and my defense was that the abuse she suffered help justify what she did, maybe not as a full excuse but it was not the same as cold-blooded murder.

but when i came home, what i found is my wife lying on the floor, beaten, blood everywhere. sprayed on the walls. furniture moved. what i didn't see was the fact that as she lay there dying but alive, the perpetrator had taken a night and opened up her belly to remove her organs when she was alive. and that when she died, he carved into her back, this time, his symbol, a satanic symbol that he used on his, and i can tell you that i, when he finally was caught, probably every single person who has suffered the same thing, i wanted to kill him. i wanted him dead.

but society doesn't do what i want. society is civilized. and society placed him on trial, gave him a great attorney. a fantastic defense, and he was convicted, and vengeance was never extracted. he was put away for the rest of his life without parole so that he will not hurt anyone again. in time, this security classification will draw. he will be able to marry, have conjugal visits, and communicate with family members and his groupies who think he is a cute man. good looking. just like the night stalker. he has a life, but he will not be able to take a life unless it is of another prisoner and he is going to have a hard time. >> so vengeance doesn't belong to the victims even though we

may want it. justice belongs to society. because what he did was so horrific that if he ever gets out he will do it again. you know, he studied being a serial killer. he read books about it. he planned it. he beat her with a rock slowly so he could watch her die. at the trial, i watched the pretrial hearings. he never showed any remorse, but he showed a great fascination when the pictures of pamela slaughtered were put up on the screen. he was fascinated. i thought i was the only one seeing it but the judge commented on that at sentencing. but who are these people who want to allow somebody like him to get the least on parole or at least the possibility of release? he put forth a bill that was totally revamp california's sentencing. it would allow somebody like

scott to get a parole hearing if he could prove to a judge that he was remorseful. what does remorseful mean? well, we morsel is the word that senator yee used in his bill. but the definition of remorseful. he took a course, when available, in prison to further himself an education. he has contacts with other people when he was in prison. scott keeps contacts. but the people on websites say he is innocent, despite the statements that he made about seeing pamela on the road and reaching out and grabbing his arm is may have she got his dna on her body. that's the story, driving on the road. well, i will teo, he told the truth about one thing. as he was slaughtering her, i am sure pamela said this can't be happening.

and ey found his dna on her body as she fought back. and his bloody footprint and the house. this is what convicted him. this is what convicted him, and his website to raise money, thousands of dollars to help set him free. and at his parole hearing, those people will be their funding him, advocating for him, his mother who came onto the property where she lived, where he had hidden in an abandoned truck, the bloody glove, the bloody evidence of the crime, she went into that truck and started to remove them to destroy them until a press helicopter came overhead and she got scared. she then went to a few hours away from our home and burned his diary. burned at the items that implicated him. his girlfriend's mother, who i now see, smiles at me, hi, she took evidence from her daughter of the murder.

took it to be destroyed. at the trial, after first having called me on the phone, when we didn't know her son was the killer and said can i help? can i make you a casserole? at the trial, bashing me with her purse. she will be at the parole hearing saying her son is innocent. the mother of the girlfriend, saying he is a nice, young man. the two schoolteachers who could have stopped the crime. one, was the art teacher. e2 art showing the murderous acts that he was going to do towards pamela. he drew them in the abstract. she admitted on the witness stand that the rules in the school, when you see something disturbing like that, you go to the principle, you let the kid did help. she didn't do it because she thought he was autistic. she doesn't believe he committed a crime. she will be at the parole hearing. the teacher who thought he was cute. the ultimate frisbee teacher. she had a crush on him.

like a schoolgirl crush. she thought he was a loner because he is sensitive. did nothing to help him. she will be at the parole hearing. she testified he didn't do it. you know who won't be at that parole hearing? i will not. because i am 54 years old. because having gone through that timee)d@%á@ @ @ a&@ )ns )@ @ @ i will not be at that parole hearing because of my health after mine wife's death. if he is paroled, he will be laughing at his crime. he will be laughing that, as a serial killer, he fooled people, and got out. i have represented people for many years. i have not lost a case -- i have lost only one case, because i am realistic with my clients i defend. are

damaged in certain ways, they don't get better. they can control to some degree what they do, but they don't get better. why is it so easy for us to accept child molesters don't get better. we accept that. it is to. they don't. they control their behavior but with a little out of all, or an opportunity, they don't get better. but you, any of you, would you let a convicted child molester babysit your children know matter how much therapy they went through? no, you wouldn't. would you let a rapist be with your loved ones? no, they don't get better. it is the same cold-blooded murders. and i'm talking about situational murders or, you know, people are acting, maybe get under turkic distress. but murders to kill because it is what they want to do to suit their purpose, they don't get better. it is a way of being. and what i said to senator d., what i said on my website about

this, what i say right now, i said you would release a person who has committed at the kind of murders that we have heard about here. would you invite into your home? judge, my client is innocent. my client could not have done this crime. would you invite into your house? and these people who want to release all juveniles on parole after a certain time, they believe that people change over time and their brain develops and they get better. that is not how it works. i know that from being there. what happens with juveniles who commit these heinous crimes, is that they are so broken that it manifests at a very young age and start fires. they hurt animals. they hurt people, at an age where other kids are playing ball or in school, doing school

activities. if they are that damaged young, nothing miraculously happens to them in a 10, 20, 30 years that they are incarcerated except maybe they can learn how to act more normally. but what i have learned is that when the sheriff deputies or prison guards, giving them a very structured routine, a lot of people who wouldn't be heinous girls on the outside can function somewhat normal. but when you take those controls off of them and put them in life, and life is hard, life takes you, and life hurt you and life puts you down. when things go wrong, people do not have the tools. they lose control and they revert to who they are, do what they did. and that is not what every single juvenile offender. there is not every single murder, and when you talk about people like scott, it is true. and when you talk about a lot of

evil in life without parole, it is true. let me tell you something. when i read these human rights watches, all of these other stories about these kids who are wrongly accused, or wrongly convicted, or way over convicted, if it wasn't real i would laugh. there is one that i read that comes from oakland so i know these people involved. the story goes, this young man and they don't give his last things we can't find the case. this young man heard that his friend was going to commit a robbery. to stop any violence from taking place, he went along. is trampled the gun and shot the store owner. he was then convicted and given life without parole, plus 10 years for use of the gun. well, i know the juvenile division, there are two of them that i know. one is a good friend of mine. he doesn't know about the case ricky never would have done that. and the other i had a case with him years ago, a drive-by. my client was in the car.

a good kid except he went along with a drive-by. one kid was shot and killed and a young woman, an innocent woman was shot in the face. the deal was, my client testified, and he would be convicted but if he testified and apologized he would get two years in vision quest, sort of a boot camp. this is the same head of the office who supposedly let a kid who just went to a crime scene, to stop crying and get life without parole. no way. and then i know what judge is supposed to be because something in the sentencing the way the judge does things. and i asked the judge, do you know anything about this case? i had never heard about this case. you know, where a kid is not involved and i would never give a kid like that that kind of sense. and then when i looked again, it was 10 years for the gun. in california, it really use of

the gun. so they lied about it. they lied about it. and every single story that i read in this human rights watch group is that the california state senate relied on to vote in favor of this bill seems ridiculous lately. you know, you have first evolved prosecutors who are not animals start as prosecutors. the regular people. they are not these. you would have to bab to try to put a kid who didn't pull a gun in order to stop a crime in prison for the rest of his life. second, you have to have a defense attorney who is totally incompetent. and then you would have to have a jury of 12 people who would vote guilty on something like that. would any of you? no. and then you have to have a judge to say life without parole or life with parole. you have to have a judge who is also a beast to do that kind of sending. and then you would have to have an appellate lawyer who doesn't raise the issue. and a court of appeals that

ignores it. you would have to have so many people being incompetent and cruel. it is just ridiculous. so what is this debate about? why are they using these fake pictures, fake stories to advance a cause? truthfully, i don't have a clue, but i know what they are doing is wrong. i know that we have to stand up against these people. and the bottom line is this. we are all, even people who i don't agree politically on this issue, we are all against injustice. no system works when somebody is unjustly in prison or given a ridiculously harsh sentence. i have never met anybody, a rational person, this debate who wants to partially imprison juveniles to be mean. we want to imprison people who are going to come out and hurt again. and believe me, people on parole commits crimes again and again more than half of them do. when your release, these kinds

of criminals on parole, whether they are adults, smarter, they know how to hide their crimes better, there will be more people like these people in the audience whose hearts are broken, whose families are broken forsake why did you let him out, leave him in jail. we don't get revenge, but nobody else gets hurt. that is why they are here and that is why i am here. >> ladies and gentlemen, this is the time when you have the opportunity to ask questions. and so if you will raise your hand and i will try to see through the slight. right over here. >> would you identify yourself and then ask a question. >> my name is ronald holt. i am a chicago police officer and i am here with cofounder jennifer bishop, and jody robertson and we are representing the national organization of victims of juvenile lifers. being an 18 year police officer in chicago, i have worked with

gangs, at risk youth who have killed and belong to street gangs. they have committed a lot of gun crimes, and other felonies. moreover, my only son who was 16 years old, this is a picture of him, this is his last high school picture. he was 16 years old. making three weeks shy of his 17th birthday. he was gunned down on a bus, protecting a young lady, role-play, for other young people were shot as well. unfortunately blair didn't survive his words. the defender, who murdered him was 16, was sentenced to 100 years in illinois. in an illinois prison on july 20, 2009. in illinois, because of the truth in sentencing, this is an

ineffective sending an ineffective licensing. but for the majority of my career i have worked the streets and witnesses constants violence regularly. so my question, my question is how can victims advocates be so divorced from reality from what i see on the streets of chicago regularly? thank you. >> okay. we will ask the panel. how can the people who are advocating these changes be so divorced from reality and who wants to start? >> in my experience, a lot of people on the defense side that i take have trouble with the victims and their feelings. now, when pamela was killed, people i knew in the defense, not as good friends but just as business friends, shunned the. they couldn't go near me. were as prosecutors, might have

even had some acrimony and reach out to me. and i think there may be sort of a mindset on the part of that group of people where they dehumanize their victims and dehumanize the families in order to do their jobs. and i think you are feeling the effects of that, which is unfortunate. >> and it is interesting, officer holt, we never met before this obvious it. we would be natural enemies. 20 years as prosecutor and almost 30 years as defense attorney, but we focus on his experience and the fact that the prosecutors did reach out to them. i do think that is a big part of it. and that is, that they have almost convinced themselves by the way they write about the crimes, about these pictures, that in fact, it's not an important public safety issue. but it is also not an important victims issue. there are two reasons for the

senses. one is to ensure the safety of the public. from my perspective, and i have sat in a parole hearings with families and pardons hearings and all the like, the revitalization that happens again and again as it is brought up is very, very difficult. and therefore, one of the reasons for instant someone like me would advocate against or for life without parole is not having those times where there is some right to reject the mice, to bring this up again and to have the family lived through it. i have seen it plenty of times. i truly believe that they, i don't mean ill on any of those on the other side of this debate, but i don't think they have the whole dynamic of what is happening. somebody has made an adult decision to commit an adult crime.

and it has left very, very adult consequences. and that person lives within, in the prison. you live with that everyday of your life. and we see that. that's the reason not to have it, parole hearings, and some expectation that you are going to have to go through that again. >> cully? >> i think that i would have a tremendous amount of respect, officer holt, if the argument from the other side was we don't want to see life without parole sentences for juvenile killers because as a compassionate society we think other senses are appropriate. and leave it at that. at least that would be honest. it would send a what warning order to all of the victims that are here and millions of others

in the united states, look, this is an issue of compassion. we are a compassionate country. and we don't like it. now, i would respectfully disagree. but instead, this campaign has been less than forthright honest and direct. and it ignores i think paul put it well, the reader divinization that will take place over and over and over in courtrooms and parole board hearings around the country. oftentimes without the victims there or family representatives there because many states don't require a prosecutor to give notice to the victims, nor do they have time to give the officer holt notice to show up. and so oddly enough i think one of the primary responsibilities of the most prosecutors it to be a human rights attorney, to thank for the rights of

everybody, especially the victims. you all know that when you try a case, and general meese and i talked about this, a person who represents himself before the court, you are trying to cases @ @ @ @ ryá you are representing the person and you are representing the state as ably as you can. i don't have a clue, but i would at least appreciate a more honest approach. >> questions and the audience? i see a hand. over here. >> i would like to give a different perspective. this is not a debate. it seems you have these three speakers out of four. i have not heard your speech, so i am sorry for that. it seems one-sided. i would like to not argue the

legal aspects. fact, not a lawyer, but i do think and your statistics, mr. simpson, in the u.s. leads the war in crime. and since i come from outside this country, lived in this country since 1970, i have found that firstly, the legal system, policing as well as prosecution is pretty brutal in this country. and in my opinion, that is one which creates more criminals in this country. so that maybe one aspect we should give some thought to. the second is somehow the upbringing of people are prudery router i have had friends sometimes to become one, we want to talk and have a meeting. and if things don't work out, i will shoot you. and i never went with a gun to defend myself, that thank god it was a joke, not real.

but there are people in this country, not all again, it should be a small minority i am hoping to are pretty brutal. and you know, when we had those torture pictures, when the congressman or senator said in a meeting, i didn't believe these are americans doing it. there are americans who aren't that covers. some of you have gone through those sufferings, you know there are people like that, particularly this gentleman, dan, who described the process which is pretty brutal. and i don't know how there are people like that, unfortunately. i hope we change our way of upbringing. those are the two issues. comments? >> i agree to do the sense that you are saying if we could just prevent what's going on with people, create a more compassionate society we would be better off. and i wish a lot of contention

that it is being let killers on parole, that money would be taken and put into programs when they are young to stop them from committing these crimes later on. >> and i think i could speak for all of us out here, including general meese, that in a perfect world our place would never engage in behavior that we often would be proud of and that we should have a perfect criminal justice system. and that is why i open my comments by saying the real test of a just and civilized society is how well we treat the defendant and the victims in our criminal justice system. but one of the reasons, sir, that i pointed out for compative analysis between crimes committed by people in the united states and other countries is to rebut the myth that we are all the same. or that we are the only country -- we all like all other

countries in terms of our crimes. and so i went to the repository of people, the un, and look at their statistics and the world health organization statistics, and one given here. although if you take any look at over a ten-year period you will see that the u.s., juveniles, in the u.s. commits crime that dorp those in other countries that are reported. now, i would agree with you completely that there are a lot of crimes that go unreported, especially in many countries around the world. but we just can't put our hands around that in terms of analysis. >> paul, do you have any comments? >> let me just mention by the way this is not billed as a debate. this is built really as a presentation of the reputation of great deal of information which has been put out by groups on the other side. this is to farrow the presentation of the study which has been going on for the last year and a half. now we will take questions

appear in the front row. >> high, i am pennies are with cns news. i wanted to ask if the organizations that are fighting against this for juveniles being sentenced to life without parole, are they listed in your publication, or who are these folks? and how will this affect the supreme court when it comes back in session? >> if i could take out the supreme court was going to rule i would be a rich man. [laughter] >> yes, there are two cases coming out in florida, graham and sullivan are the two defendants named. they are procedurally indifferent posture, and so we are probably are going back to back the same day but the rule will probably not be joined. yes, we list all of the organizations in our report and in our footnotes. and look, this report will go

out to all prosecutors in the country, many key state legislators, many judges and justices around the country, key victims rights groups, state thank takes. and it is available right now as we speak on the heritage website, web dot heritage.org and you will see a probably displayed there and you can download the whole paper or each chapter. into our hope that we have, an honest and straight full debate going for. i thank all his correct and the court will not be tempted to breach the wall between death penalty jurisprudence and non-death penalty, at least that is my hope. >> one way i can do that the report is helpful, for someone like myself, i had to try to get, i really had to depend on many of the reports coming from

the other side because there was no good repository with that information. so this is helpful in that it gives the counter statement of what the real facts are. and a very realistic way. i know i am involved in one of the particular cases, and i know what it was before in some of those other reports. it can be helpful. and may be cited to various courts throughout the country because that's the we need to do to get the information out. >> question over here. >> hi. i am deborah weiss, a former juvenile prosecutor and i just want to say it is really a slippery slope because i have never done death penalty kind of cases or murder cases, but even for the minor minor offenses, just simple assault or battery or anything like that, i can't say how may times the other side, legally, the entire defense assisted in the juvenile.

they are young and i am like so what. so they can't form intent? or even if they do for content it doesn't count because they are below a certain age. i never understood it but i'd did want to say i think it is a slippery slope or the other thing i want to comment on the response to someone said here about our country maybe has more crime because our criminal system and our police officers are so violent. i don't know what countries a person comes from who said that, but i would argue with anything it is the opposite. it is because we have freedom that we have so much hi. when you go to the countries that have a lot less crime, it's because they are afraid of doing anything or they're going to wind up with the police throwing them in jail. and my final comment, just about what you said with the compassion, you know, that you wish they would say we are a compassionate society, i wish they wouldn't do that. is there is an agent saying that says being kind to the parole is like being cruel to the kind. i am sorry i have comments

instead of a question. i usually don't do that. thanks. >> thank you. any other questions that anyone else has? yes, over here. >> robert alt from heritage. i just wanted to see, i don't know him if the panels are familiar with this, but i know one of the major argument someone made in roper, and i'd assume being to the current debate goes to questions, jumping off your question, as to whether or not juveniles are capable of forming intent. is there a different and cerebral development? and sent cully started by saying our great distortion in the offenders by some of the others. if you would be able to talk about whether there actually is any credibility to those sorts of arguments, about cerebral development. >> one of the things that we chose not to delve into just because it was outside of our

lane, and i'm surely not not a psychiatrist or psychologist, and i wanted to keep the paper to about 100 pages. is this notion that like you pointed out in roper, the juvenile's brains are still underdeveloped that they really can't be held accountable for their actions. i will say that in the roper case, there were two filed on behalf of the government. there were 15 on behalf of the accused. that will be quite different this time around. as you are going see, all prosecutors in the country joined together. state legislators, international law scholars and a lot of other people, including people who work in psychology and psychiatry. saying that this issue of whether brains are sufficiently developed is sort of a -- it

doesn't hold a lot of water. there is a renowned phd psychologist, judy, who is a professor at u. penn who argued in the law journal a couple of years ago criticizing the roper decision. and the first line i think says it all. he says people commit crimes. brains don't. and so are their people, individuals out there who are mentally incompetent or don't have sufficient ability to understand the proceedings before them or assist in their defense? absolutely, and they should not be tried in court at all. they should be held mentally incompetent and incapable of subjecting them to the criminal process. but we're not talking about them. we're talking about people who think through their crimes, like roper, plan them out and go forward. it also strikes me as a little on, and i think if you think about it, just generally, folks,

how can we hear on the one side of the ledger, completely outside of the criminal law context, that young people, 12, 13, 14, can make life most important choices, birth, death, aborting the fetus, perfectly capable of doing that but yet over here in the criminal law context their brains are not sufficiently developed to be held accountable for murdering somebody. there is a disconnect, and i think reasonable people, rational people realize that there comes a point in time into development of the team where they are certainly capable of being held accountable for things that they plan and did. >> i'm afraid we've come to the end of our time here. i appreciate very much of the questions from the audience, and also the good work by our panel. please join me in thanking our panel for the presentation

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