Blog of Rights
Jennifer
Turner
10/01/2012
Juvenile Life Without Parole

California Gives Hope to Child Offenders Sentenced to Die in Prison

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 6:43pm

Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown signed California’s Senate Bill 9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, giving California youth sentenced to die in prison a second chance at life. There are 309 child offenders serving life-without-parole sentences in California for murders committed when they were younger than 18. The bill, known as SB 9, gives these individuals the chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison.  It allows juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole to petition the sentencing court to review their cases after 15 years and reduce their sentence to 25 years-to-life if they show remorse and are taking steps toward rehabilitation.

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07/27/2012
Children's Rights

A Decade in Detention for Former Child Soldier

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:39am

Today marks a decade in U.S. custody for Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who is Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner. Even though he has been eligible for transfer back to Canada for almost nine months pursuant to his October 2010 plea deal, he is still detained at Guantánamo. Khadr is the only one of the 168 remaining detainees who was a juvenile when transferred to Guantánamo.

Khadr has grown up at Guantánamo. Now 25, the full beard Khadr has grown since his imprisonment in 2002 obscures the fact that he was only 15 when he was shot and captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

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03/21/2011

While Manning Languishes in Military Custody, U.N. Calls for Accountability for Torture

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 1:49pm

Friday in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council, comprised of 47 nations, adopted a long list of over 200 recommendations of policy changes needed to bring the U.S. into compliance with its human rights obligations. The council's recommendations came out of the first-ever comprehensive review of the United States' human rights record, called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The recommendations covered a broad range of issue areas, including calling for the U.S. to impose a moratorium on the death penalty, to close Guantánamo, to reduce prison overcrowding, and to take steps to prevent racial profiling.

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12/17/2010

A Step Forward for Promoting Indigenous Rights

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:43pm

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. will lend its support to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which recognizes a broad range of rights for indigenous peoples and articulates the rights set forth for indigenous peoples in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The decision is a reversal of the position taken by the Bush administration in 2007, when the U.S. voted against the UNDRIP even as 145 nations supported it. The ACLU and the Human Rights at Home Campaign have long called for unqualified endorsement of UNDRIP.

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12/10/2010

On Human Rights Day, Demanding Justice for All

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 12:05pm
"From the execution of innocent inmates, to en masse arrest and deportation of immigrant workers, to torture victims denied their day in court, the ACLU's new report details how U.S. victims of human rights abuses are systematically denied access to justice because of recent laws and court decisions."
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10/29/2010
Guantánamo Dispatch

The Victims

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 5:07pm

Yesterday was an emotional day of testimony from widow Tabitha Speer and Omar Khadr. As a reminder, on Monday, Khadr pled guilty as part of a plea agreement to all of the charges against him, including throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. Christopher Speer eight years ago. We are now in the sentencing phase of the case.

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10/28/2010

Government Witness Claims Gitmo Radicalized Child Soldier

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 2:49pm

Since Omar Khadr's guilty plea this Monday, the case has moved into the sentencing phase, and a panel of senior military officers has been hearing testimony about mitigating and aggravating factors. Khadr's actual sentence is capped under the plea bargain agreement, the terms of which have not been disclosed to the jury. Now 24, Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and has spent a third of his life at Guantánamo.

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10/26/2010
Guantánamo Dispatch

Escape from Guantánamo by Plea Deal

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:22am

Yesterday, Canadian detainee Omar Khadr pled guilty to all five charges against him, in an 11th-hour plea deal that averted the scheduled resumption of his military commission trial. Imprisoned since his capture in Afghanistan at age 15, Khadr has spent a third of his life in U.S. detention.

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10/25/2010
Guantánamo Dispatch

Khadr Accepts Plea Deal, Trial Averted

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 3:44pm

Earlier today, Omar Khadr pled guilty to all charges against him, averting a full-blown military commissions trial that was slated to restart today. A sentencing hearing will commence tomorrow. (But like Ibrahim al-Qosi before him, his actual sentence — reportedly one more year at Gitmo, and seven more to be served in Canada — has already been negotiated; the sentencing hearing will only matter if the jury delivers a sentence shorter than the one negotiated.)

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08/20/2010
Guantánamo

The Gitmo Sentence Guessing Game

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:27am

Before Omar Khadr's trial ground to a halt last week, the sentencing hearing of 50-year-old detainee Ibrahim al-Qosi continued apace. Al-Qosi is the first detainee to be convicted in the military commissions under the Obama administration, in a plea deal in which he admitted to being an al Qaeda cook and occasional driver.

During the two days of sentencing hearings, everyone in the room other than the jurors knew that there had been a secret plea agreement capping the actual amount of time al-Qosi will serve at 10 years (two years in addition to the eight he's already served). On Monday, the judge, Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, ruled that this true sentence would be kept secret until the military commissions' Convening Authority approves it, at an unspecified date. The jurors were only given the enumerated charges to which al-Qosi had pled guilty, and had to set a formal sentence based on that information.

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