There Are Children Here: Reconceiving Justice for Adolescent Offenders

There Are Children Here: Reconceiving Justice for Adolescent Offenders

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“You made your choice. You’re gonna have to live with your choice, and you’re gonna die with your choice because, Bobby Bostic, you will die in the Department of Corrections.” With those harsh words, Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Baker sentenced 16-year-old Bobby Bostic to a term of 241 years in a Missouri prison for a series of armed robberies and assaults that took place over the course of a single December evening in 1995. Bobby had not killed anyone, but Judge Baker effectively sentenced him to die in prison for the nonhomicide crimes he committed as a teenager. In 2017, Bobby petitioned the United States Supreme Court to hear his case and to overturn his sentence as unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Seventy-five prominent criminal justice leaders, including former United States Solicitors General Kenneth Starr and Donald Verrilli, former Acting United States Attorney General Sally Yates, and former FBI Director William Webster, filed an amicus brief along with 13 current elected chief state prosecutors and nine former judges requesting that the Court overturn Bobby’s sentence as cruel and unusual punishment. Judge Baker even added her name to the petition for certiorari. Despite the seeming universal condemnation of this sentence as excessive in light of our understanding of the adolescent brain and an adolescent’s capacity to change, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Bobby is currently serving a longer sentence than any adolescent offender in Missouri who did not commit murder. He will be eligible for parole in 2091 at the age of 112. What led to this outcome? Bobby and an older teenage friend, Donald Hutson, had not been looking to rob anyone that December evening. But then they happened to see something unexpectedly tempting: a car loaded with Christmas presents. On impulse, the two teens robbed the group of six people who had volunteered to deliver those gifts to the needy in north St. Louis. During the armed robbery, shots were fired by both boys. A bullet grazed the skin of one man in the group who later required a tetanus shot. No one else suffered any physical injuries. Moments later, and only a few blocks away, Hutson and Bobby saw another woman delivering gifts for charity. This seemed to be yet another opportunity to score gifts and money. Bobby and Hutson forced the woman into her car, and Hutson put a gun to her head, demanding money. Although she surrendered her purse, Hutson was not satisfied. Hutson put his hands in her pants, claiming he wanted to check to see if she had any hidden money. The woman later testified at trial that she thought Hutson planned to rape her but that Bobby prevented it and convinced Hutson to let her go. The public uproar immediately following the report of these robberies was swift and intense. The media had featured the armed robberies as top stories and front-page news, expressing alarm at the particularly callous nature of the crimes. When the police arrested Bobby and Donald Hutson shortly after, the public craved vengeance. These offenses occurred at the height of the fear of, and furor over, the supposed coming tide of “superpredators.” The facts of the case, as reported by the media, seemed to confirm the racist myth that these kids were dangerously different: predatory and irredeemable. Ironically, had the media and general public looked beyond that tidy public narrative to examine the grim details of Bobby Bostic’s life, they would have discovered a different story: Bobby and his family were as vulnerable as the needy families that the seven volunteers were looking to serve that evening. Bobby had been born into a world of bad facts. One of four children, Bobby rarely experienced anything approaching security or stability. His family lived in north St. Louis, one of the poorest sections of the city. Throughout Bobby’s childhood, his family had endured the type of homelessness that is perhaps less visible but is nonetheless profoundly destabilizing. They moved constantly from relative to relative just to keep a roof over their heads. Bobby’s mother tried to care for herself and her family, but she struggled with addiction throughout her life. Sometimes the family had to fend for itself. Bobby’s father was absent, so when the kids were hungry, they turned to Bobby. He was the oldest boy in the family. Some days, he would bring home the school lunch that the state provided so his sisters and brother would have something to eat. Other days, when matters got worse, he would steal food for the kids to eat. Bobby tried to step into adult shoes well before he was ready. At age 10, Bobby began experimenting with drugs and alcohol in an obvious cry for help. No one seemed to be listening. Bobby lived and grew up in a community that was on the wrong side of the tracks. As with most kids his age, once Bobby became a teenager he enjoyed spending time outside in the neighborhood. But Bobby would soon learn the perils of his environment. His younger brother, Shawn, was shot in an apparent gang-related turf battle and was left paralyzed. Once again, trauma defined and tilted his world. Bobby lost what little faith he might once have had that anyone could protect him against the very real dangers in his life. He had learned from an early age to rely on himself, and he therefore started carrying a gun for self-protection. Bobby looked for security and comfort wherever he could find them, but such things eluded him. School had the potential to fill that void, but it did not. In fact, shortly before the events that December night, Bobby had dropped out of high school. He had begun to get into trouble with the law and started to amass a number of arrests. Multiple contacts with the legal system did not raise flags or engage any services for him. His mother, despite her own personal demons, did her best to advise and guide him. But as is so often the case with teenagers, Bobby’s peers and neighborhood had louder voices and greater influence. One friend to whom he turned was 18-year-old Donald Hutson. Hutson, the older boy with whom Bobby committed these crimes, has admitted to being the aggressor that December night and has expressed regret that “I put him in that predicament in the first place.” Unlike Bobby Bostic, though, Hutson entered a plea of guilty to all counts of robbery, attempted robbery, assault, and kidnapping. Hutson’s parole eligibility date was in 2020. Following the arrest of the two teenagers, prosecutors extended the identical plea offer to Bobby: 30 years in prison. Prosecutors were not inclined toward leniency. The public outrage over the armed robberies had given them permission—even a perceived mandate—to deliver a harsh response. There certainly was little, if any, public pressure placed on prosecutors to consider Bobby’s age or developmental immaturity as mitigating factors in fashioning a plea deal. But his age and immaturity would later play a determining role in his own assessment of the justice options he faced. Anyone who has spent time with an adolescent knows the difficulty teenagers experience conceptualizing future consequences. It is nearly impossible for a 16-year-old Black boy to imagine his life thirty years from that point. So, it should come as no surprise that agreeing to enter a guilty plea that guaranteed he would not see the light of day again until age 46 proved too much of a hurdle for Bobby. Besides, peers in jail were mistakenly advising Bobby that any sentence he received after trial could not be worse. It is perhaps a testament to the power of adolescent peer influence that he chose to follow their advice rather than the contrary recommendations of both his family and legal counsel. Bobby rejected the plea offer and elected to go to trial. As a teenager, he thought he knew best. He did not. At 16, Bobby was not old enough to drink or vote, but the prosecutor’s office certified him as an adult for trial. At the conclusion, a jury convicted him of eight counts of armed criminal action, three counts of attempted robbery, two counts of assault, one count of kidnapping, and one count of possession of marijuana. During trial, Bobby did not cry. He did not appear remorseful upon hearing the jury’s verdict of guilt. Bobby submitted several letters to the court before sentencing, apologizing for how he behaved when leaving the courtroom after the verdict, explaining why he did not cry even though he felt pain at the announcement of the verdict, and asking for leniency. He also expressed frustration, as the teenager that he was, over the trial and his treatment by the police and prosecutor. The prosecutor asked Judge Baker to impose consecutive sentences on each of the counts. He argued: “These were good-hearted people, all of them. And they ran into two mean- hearted men. They’re not boys; they’re men” (emphasis added).

Source Publication

Progressive Prosecution: Race and Reform in Criminal Justice

Source Editors/Authors

Kim Taylor-Thompson, Anthony C. Thompson

Publication Date

2022

There Are Children Here: Reconceiving Justice for Adolescent Offenders

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