Children don't deserve to die in prison. Tell DA Spencer Merriweather: Commit to ending LWOP sentences for kids.

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    Children don't deserve to die in prison. Tell DA Spencer Merriweather: Commit to ending LWOP sentences for kids.

    youth in a juvenile facility

    In Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentences for life without parole for juvenile offenders, even in cases of murder, was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. But in North Carolina's Mecklenburg County, children are still overwhelmingly sentenced to die in prison--and it has to stop.

    A new Color Of Change report, "When Kids Are Sentenced to Die In Prison," details how the Mecklenburg County District Attorney's Office has sought life without parole sentences in 100 percent of cases eligible for lower sentencing, even after the historic Supreme Court ruling. And every single young person that received a sentence to die in prison was Black or Brown.

    The good news is: since taking office this year, Interim District Attorney Spencer Merriweather is on a new path. He ran and won his primary election campaign on a platform of criminal justice reform. Despite the county's vicious history of seeking the harshest penalty for youth, Merriweather has the chance to end juvenile life without parole sentencing in Mecklenburg County for good.

    Kids must be treated as kids and given restorative options--not sentenced to die in prison. Prosecutors must instead reorient their understanding of youthful mitigating attributes, which include, but are not limited to, lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, vulnerability to negative influences and outside pressures, limited control over their environment, and capacity for change.

    Any other approach is incredibly aggressive and cruel. When sentencing children to LWOP prosecutors fail to do their job to properly and treat kids differently from adults. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make an accurate determination at the time of sentencing that a child will be completely unable to rehabilitate in his or her lifetime. Due to this, some states have completely banned LWOP sentences for children--help us demand that DA Merriweather do the same.

    Below is the message we will send to Mecklenburg County District Attorney Spencer Merriweather:

    Here is the Petition:

    We urge you to end the practice of sentencing children to life without parole and to treat kids like kids.