When I met Trina, Ian, and Antonio years later, they had each been broken by years of
hopeless confinement. They were legally condemned children hidden away in adult prisons,
largely unknown and forgotten, preoccupied with surviving in dangerous, terrifying
environments with little family support or outside help. They weren’t exceptional. There were
thousands of children like them scattered throughout prisons in the United States—children
who had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or other extreme sentences. The
relative anonymity of these kids seemed to aggravate their plight and their despair. I agreed
to represent Trina, Ian, and Antonio, and our office would eventually make challenging
death-in-prison sentences imposed on children a major focus of our work. But it became
immediately clear that their extreme, unjust sentences were just one of the problems that had
to be overcome. They were all damaged and traumatized by our system of justice.
Trina’s mental and physical health made her life in prison extremely challenging. She was
grateful for our help and showed remarkable improvement when we told her that we were
going to fight to get her sentence reduced, but she had many other needs. She talked
constantly about wanting to see her son. She wanted to know that she was not alone in the
world. We tracked down her sisters and arranged a visit where Trina could see her son, and it
seemed to strengthen her in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible.
I flew to Los Angeles and drove hundreds of miles through the heart of Central California
farmland to meet Antonio at a maximum-security prison dominated by gangs and frequent
violence. He was trying to acculturate himself to a world that corrupted healthy human
development in every way. Reading had always been challenging for Antonio, but he had a
strong desire to learn and was so determined to understand that he would read a passage over
and over, looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary we sent him, until he got it. We
recently sent him Darwin’s The Origin of Species, which he hopes will help him better
understand those around him.
It turns out that Ian was very, very bright. Although being smart and sensitive made his
extended time in solitary confinement especially destructive, he had managed to educate
himself, read hundreds of books, and write poetry and short stories that reflected an eager,
robust intellect. He sent me dozens of letters and poems. I’d return to the office after traveling
for a few days and often find letters from Ian. Sometimes I’d find within a letter a scrap of
wrinkled paper, which, once unfolded, would reveal thoughtful and sobering poems with
titles like “Uncried Tears,” “Tied Up with Words,” “The Unforgiving Minute,” “Silence,” and
“Wednesday Ritual.”
We decided to publish a report to draw attention to the plight of children in the United
States who had been sentenced to die in prison. I wanted to photograph some of our clients in
order to give the life-without-parole sentences imposed on children a human face. Florida was
one of the few states that would allow photographers inside a prison, so we asked prison
officials if Ian could be permitted out of his solitary, no-touch existence for an hour so that
the photographer we hired could take the pictures. To my delight, they agreed and allowed
Ian to be in the same room with an outside photographer. As soon as the visit was over, Ian
immediately wrote me a letter.
Dear Mr. Stevenson:
I hope this letter reaches you in good health, and everything is going well for you. The focal point of this letter is to
thank you for the photo session with the photographer and obtain information from you how I can obtain a good