Keven Coffay, the teen who drove drunk, killed three of his friends as a result and fled the wreck as they lay trapped and dying, has prevailed in his effort to get the original 20 year prison sentence (for involuntary manslaughter) reduced. Now he may be released as early as next spring, on parole from his new, lenient, 8 year sentence. I won’t re-iterate my views on Coffay’s case, which are already here and here. I will make this additional observation.
In his column today, George Will discusses the science behind the growing consensus that life sentences without the chance of parole qualify as “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the 8th Amendment. I don’t disagree with his conclusion, nor do I doubt, as the father of a teen-age son, that the brain chemistry of teens dictate special calculations and analysis when trying to decide on what is just punishment for crimes arising from the recklessness and poor judgment of adolescents as opposed to adults.
Society has to protect itself too, however, as well as its children, and to strike a balance between compassion for the young, effective justice, showing proper respect for the sanctity of life, and protecting the potential victims of juvenile anti-social behavior. Will shows that science has concluded that at some level, teens are incapable of rational thought. This means that reason isn’t enough to dissuade the most reckless kids, like Coffay, from actions that endanger themselves and others. In the absence of persuasion as an effective remedy, society is justified, and I would say obligated, to move to negative reinforcement. If we can’t persuade a mule to get off the train tracks, we need to use a cattle prod; if we can’t convince kids that driving drunk is wrong, than we hit them between the eyes with the 2X4 of a clear demonstration their lives as they know them will be destroyed if they cause fatal accidents, whether they personally survive them or not. This means inflicting a punishment in a high-profile case like Coffay’s that sends an indelible message, a message that cannot be sent by the possibility of only one year in jail for the death of three youths.
The judges who truncated Coffay’s sentence apparently objected to the original sentencing judge using the case to send such a message to other potentially deadly teens. There was nothing wrong with the original sentence’s objective, and if we are going to craft an effective message to make unreasoning drunk teens think again before endangering others on the roads, who better to use to send it than an insufficiently remorseful defendant who killed three passengers in recklessness and then added cowardice, callousness and betrayal his misconduct?
Ethics Alarms 
Let’s see now. Their brains aren’t capable of thinking things through rationally, so we can’t hoold them totally responsible for their acts. Which is why they aren’t supposed to drink alcohol, but they are old enough to vote.
It’s not that they are incapable of rational thought, it’s that they are poor in prioritising more than one thing at a time, e.g. safety verses enjoyment. A child who ordinarily knows how to cross the street safely may dart on to the road when chasing a ball.
A heavy punishment will not deter reckless behaviour among youth who think “it will not happen to me!”.
I don’t think most kids will see this besides those affected personally.
Maybe, maybe not. I guarantee that no significant punishment for killing 3 people will not dissuade anyone.
Don’t go overboard with the studies that show adolescents are incapable of being responsible, thinking rationally, or evaluating risks. If you look at such studies, they are done in a vacuum and merely state that older people are BETTER at evaluating risks (duh). The main point is that our brains continue to develop until 25 or so. Much like Titanic research, however, this research is interpreted wildly and without considering evidence to the contrary.
My father and uncles were apprenticed as toolmakers starting at about 7 years of age (to my grandfather). Throughout history, people have been apprenticed in and worked in dangerous fields from early ages. If you had history classes in school, you will remember that the founding fathers such as Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were working at 12 and 13 and supporting themselves. They were the same species as we have today. The difference isn’t biological, it is environmental. Children today don’t have to evaluate risks, they are nonexistent. They have reached the age of 15 or 16 and never had to face the consequences of their actions. Kids don’t play with tools in elementary school anymore, so they don’t learn how easy it is for a hammer to smash a thumb, a knife or saw to cut you. They don’t jump out of trees an break legs anymore or play on playground equipment that isn’t idiot-proofed. They live in a world where if they are able to hurt themselves, someone else is at fault (and sued).
Brain development is NOT the reason they engage in risky behavior. Yes, we get wiser when we get older, but that doesn’t mean were have to be blithering fools until 25 and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be held accountable for our actions until then either. By 25, Alexander the Great had conquered all the way to Egypt and was headed to Persia.
Eighth Amendment jurisprudence jumped the shark with Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), where the phrase “evolving standards of decency” were first used. As a matter of policy, I believe the Eighth Amendment should be repealed, due to this jurisprudence
It should at most create a presumption of lesser culpability than an adult who did a similar act.
However, it should not mean that this presumption should not be subject to rebuttal. Unlike the mentally retarded, who are by definition incapable of premeditation, 14-year-olds can be capable of premeditation. While their youth should entitle them toa presumption that their crime was not premeditated, a prosecutor should get the chance to show evidence of premeditation, i.e., making plans, preparing for the act in advance, etc.
Perhaps the two persons Will mentioned in his article should not have been sentenced to life without parole. This does not mean that no 14-year-old, under any circumstances, should be sentenced to life without parole.
Evolving standards of decency is a good standard, and a necessary one, as long as courts follow them rather than push them along. The prison crowding rulings are absolutely necessary and just, for example.Executing prisoners who don’t comprehend what they did or what is happening to them has been justly ruled barbaric. Outrageously long sentences for minor crimes, mutilations, etc…Repealing the 8th is not a good idea, but it’s not worth arguing about, because it will never happen.
That is correct, but in Trop the court started to push those standards.
It was the right call; the ratifiers of the Eighth saw that as cruel and unusual.
For everyone out there just to up date you. Mr Coffay is sitting in jail now for driving a car with a suspended license, a car with no insurance and without an alcohol interlock. Is he going to use the excuse that Judge McGann used a culture underage drinking and it not being Kevin’s fault. This is who he is not 20 he is now 28. He should have served his original sentence. Now probably he will for Violating his parole and his traffic violation.