Arden Lesoravage & Dan Martinez
We have so much hope for our children, frequently telling them that they have their whole lives ahead of them. In their eyes, we see boundless possibilities for what their future holds: being a dancer, an engineer, a farmer, a teacher—whatever they can dream of. Protecting and uplifting our children to help them achieve their dreams is inherent to American beliefs, yet countless children have their futures ripped away from them and determined at a young age through the abuse and neglect that they experience. These formative experiences can truly change a child’s entire life, doing irreparable harm to both them and their families.
“All but one prisoner executed in 2020 had evidence of one or more of the following significant impairments: serious mental illness (8); brain injury, developmental brain damage, or an IQ in the intellectually disabled range (6); chronic serious childhood trauma, neglect, and/or abuse (14)” (DPIC). Experiencing childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect make our children more vulnerable to the criminal justice system and being taken advantage of. We see this in the stories of Lisa Montgomery, Dustin Higgs, Corey Johnson, Nicholas Sutton, Billy Joe Wardlow, Keith Nelson, Christopher Vialva, and Brandon Bernard: all sentenced to death.
Lisa Montgomery experienced decades of childhood abuse, being raped, sex trafficked, physically and mentally abused, and had various disabilities and mental illnesses. Dustin Higgs had intellectual disabilities and was abused as a child, and never received any supplemental support. Corey Johnson was abandoned as a child and also flagged for having intellectual disabilities, yet never found a safe family to take him in or received any support for his disabilities. Nicholas Sutton was also severely abused as a child, as was Billy Joe Wardlow, who tried to take his own life three separate times as a teenager. Keith Nelson experienced multiple signs of mental illness, likely from experiencing fetal alcohol syndrome and being sexually and physically abused. Christopher Vialva and Brandon Bernard were both convicted as teenagers for the same crime, fallen to the pressure of their peers.
In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing people with intellectual disabilities was in violation of the 8th Amendment, yet “prosecutors and defense lawyers frequently tangle in court over whether someone actually suffers from” intellectual disability. Inadequate legal representation and legal requirements oftentimes allow for those with intellectual disabilities to receive a capital punishment sentence and ultimately be executed by the state.
Many activists were confused as to how such great injustices were able to be committed with the precedent that the Supreme Court has set. The harsh reality is that once a jury rules on the facts that have been presented to them in court, an individual on trial has their fate sealed. While they can still go through the appeals process, the appeals court only deal with fallacies in the law, not in case fact. Simply put, they only deal in the black and white—and therefore do not entertain the grey areas of a case. During an individual’s trial, they need to have representation that will adequately present a clear and strong fact pattern so that the jury can better understand any mitigating and aggravating circumstances. However, because both of these judgements are entirely opinion-based, once a jury has made their opinion based on what was presented to them, that is what is sentenced. There are no considerations in jury deliberation for what might be there, only what is presented. That makes it infinitely easier for a harsher sentenced to be pursued.
2020 saw the executions of many individuals who were abused as children, leading to their participation in crime as older teens and adults, as well as more vulnerable to being taken advantage of by the courts system. “The death penalty is a poor person's issue. In the end, it's the poor who are selected to die in this country. You'll never find a rich person on death row.” Helen Prejean notes that persons living in poverty, as disabled individuals will far too frequently be, are also targeted by the courts system. We have to speak out against these injustices so that our children who go unprotected do not have their lives taken from them prematurely.
