Schwarzenegger Commutes Sentence of Human Trafficking Victim

No country outside the United States allows children to be sentenced to life without the chance of parole, a life behind bars without the chance of redemption. In California alone, around 275 children have received such a sentence, belying the right-wing caricature of the state as a bastion of unchecked bleeding-heart liberalism.

On Sunday, outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) – set to be replaced today by the nominally liberal, prison guard-endorsed Jerry Brown (D) – granted clemency to one child whose story we've covered in-depth here at Change.org: Sara Kruzan.

Sara was sentenced to life without parole at 16 after she was convicted of killing the man who had raped and forced her into a life of prostitution three years earlier – when she was just 13. Now 33, Sara has spent more than half her life in a prison, where she has become both a model inmate and a poignant example of the evils of California's mass incarceration problem.

Calling her sentence “excessive,” Schwarzenegger reduced Sara's sentence to 25 years to life with the possibility of parole, a move that came only after her case drew the attention of politicians, newspaper editorial boards and activists like Change.org's own Amanda Kloer and Gloria Killian, a California woman who spent more than 16 years behind bars for a murder she didn't commit. More than 60,000 Change.org members also urged Schwarzenegger to commute Sara's sentence before he left office.

And while she won't be immediately freed, as Killian wrote on Twitter, "She will get out in time."

“I applaud the governor’s action and the hard work of [so] many to highlight this case,” state Sen. Leland Yee (D), a child psychologist, said in a statement. “The case of Sara Kruzan demonstrates why we should never sentence a child to life without the possibility of parole – a sentence to die in prison,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are many more Sara Kruzans out there who are also deserving of a more appropriate sentence.”

Indeed, a 2008 report from Human Rights Watch estimates that there are more than 2,400 youth offenders in the U.S. serving sentences of life without parole, 60 percent of them African American and the majority first-time offenders. Twenty-six percent were sentenced under felony murder laws that punish children who were party to a crime like robbery where; in Florida, one child whose friend broke a window with a rock is being held responsible for the fact the homeowner responded by shooting and killing him.

Sixteen percent of the children sentenced to life without parole were 15 years or younger when they committed their crime, according to the report.

And while the situation in California is bad, it's worse in Pennsylvania, where more than 440 kids have been sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole, making the commonwealth the world leader when it comes to sentencing children to die behind bars.

While Sara Kruzan has been granted the right to redeem herself -- to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of rehabilitation -- hundreds of other prisoners sentenced as children have only a lifetime behind bars to look forward to.

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