Chapter Sixteen

The Stonecatchers’ Song of Sorrow

On May 17 , 2010 , I was sitting in my office waiting anxiously when the U.S. Supreme Court
announced its decision: Life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on children
convicted of non-homicide crimes is cruel and unusual punishment and constitutionally
impermissible. My staff and I jumped up and down in celebration. Moments later we were
inundated with a flood of calls from media, clients, families, and children’s rights advocates.
It was the first time the Court had issued a categorical ban on a punishment other than the
death penalty. Joe Sullivan was entitled to relief. Scores of people, including Antonio Nuñez
and Ian Manuel, were entitled to reduced sentences that would give them a “meaningful
opportunity for release.”
Two years later, in June 2012 , we won a constitutional ban on mandatory life-without-
parole sentences imposed on children convicted of homicides. The Supreme Court had agreed
to review Evan Miller’s case and the case of our client from Arkansas, Kuntrell Jackson. I
argued both cases in March of that year and waited anxiously until we won a favorable
ruling. The Court’s decision meant that no child accused of any crime could ever again be
automatically sentenced to die in prison. Over two thousand condemned people sentenced to
life imprisonment without parole for crimes when they were children were now potentially
eligible for relief and reduced sentences. Some states changed their statutes to create more
hopeful sentences for child offenders. Prosecutors in many places resisted retroactive
application of the Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, but everyone now had new hope,
including Ashley Jones and Trina Garnett.
We continued our work on issues involving children by pursuing more cases. I believe there
should be a total ban on housing children under the age of eighteen with adults in jails or
prisons. We filed cases seeking to stop the practice. I am also convinced that very young
children should never be tried in adult court. They’re vulnerable to all sorts of problems that
increase the risk of a wrongful conviction. No child of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen can
defend him- or herself in the adult criminal justice system. Wrongful convictions and illegal
trials involving young children are very common.
A few years earlier, we won the release of Phillip Shaw, who was fourteen when he was