ACLU Champions Children's Rights With Petition to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
NEW YORK - The national American Civil Liberties Union and the
ACLU of Michigan today filed a petition urging the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights to rule that sentencing children to mandatory life without the
possibility of parole violates the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
universal human rights principles.
"The
petitioners were children when they were sentenced to adult prisons for the rest
of their lives without any opportunity for parole. Every child deserves
the opportunity for a second chance," said Deborah LaBelle, the director of the
ACLU of Michigan's Juvenile Life Without Parole initiative. "Ignoring the
reality of the youthful status of these children, the possibility of
rehabilitation and denying judges and juries any discretion results in an
unforgiving sentence that violates basic fairness and human rights
principles."
The ACLU filed the petition on behalf of 32 juveniles
who were tried as adults and given mandatory life sentences for crimes committed
when they were under the age of 18 without any consideration of their status as
children. In Michigan and many other states, juveniles can be tried in
adult courts and sentenced to life without any chance of parole regardless of
their age or the circumstances of their offense.
The
imposition of life without parole on minor children is explicitly prohibited by
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty which has been signed and
ratified by every country in the world save the United States and Somalia.
Despite this, Michigan and 40 other states permit these sentences to be imposed
on juveniles. Michigan is one of 13 states that have no age limit for life
sentences without possibility of parole, thereby directly violating this long
established universal standard, according to the ACLU.
"The United States is out of step with the rest of the world when
it comes to treatment of children," said Steven Watt, a human rights advisor
with the ACLU Human Rights Working Group. "By not allowing people
incarcerated as children to ask a court to reconsider their sentences, the
United States and Michigan are violating basic human rights
norms."
The ACLU petition seeks the opportunity for the petitioners
to apply for parole, the reform of U.S. laws that allow juveniles to be tried as
adults and a declaration from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that
the United States generally and Michigan specifically are in violation of the
petitioners rights.
Established by the United States
and Latin American countries in 1959 under the auspices of the Organization of
American States ("OAS"), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which
sits in Washington D.C., is expressly authorized to examine allegations of human
rights violations by members of the OAS. The Commission is also authorized to
conduct on-site visits to observe the general human rights situations in all 35
member states of the OAS and to investigate specific allegations of violations
of Inter-American human rights treaties and other instruments. Its overall
responsibility is to promote the observance and the defense of human rights in
the Americas.
The ACLU's new Human Rights Working Group is
dedicated to holding the U.S. government accountable to universally recognized
human rights principles. The Human Rights Working Group is charged with
incorporating international human rights strategies into ACLU advocacy on issues
relating to national security, immigrants' rights, women's rights and racial
justice.
The petition is brought by LaBelle and Kary Moss of the
ACLU of Michigan, and Watt and Ann Beeson of the ACLU Human Rights Working Group
with the cooperation of the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School.
The ACLU's petition to the IACHR is available online at: www.aclu.org/crimjustice/sentencing/24232lgl20060222.html
More
information about the ACLU of Michigan's Juvenile Life Without Parole initiative
is available online at: www.aclu.org/crimjustice/juv/10322prs20040914.html