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Health & Fitness

Just punishment?

“Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, according to the King James Bible. If so, should humans presume to impose eternal punishment for sins on others?

When he was 17 years old, Scott Dyleski was convicted of bludgeoning his neighbor , Pamle Vitale, to death with a rock and carving satanic symbols onto her back after she was dead.

Does Scott Dyleski deserve to spend the rest of his life in prison? For that matter, should any child be sentenced to die in prison without parole, because the severity of his or her crimes?

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According to recent statistics, there are currently almost 2400 juveniles serving life with out parole (LWOP) sentences in the United States, although more than 190 other countries have expressly rejected LWOP for juveniles. The United States and Israel are the only countries  in the world where juveniles offender currently face this fate.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles as unconstitutional "cruel and unusual" punishment. Approximately 300 youth offenders have been sentenced to LWOP in California’s prisons for crimes committed when they were teenagers.

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 Scott was a friend of my daughter Ellie at Stanley Middle School and Acalanes High School in Lafayette. I knew Scott as well; he has been to my house, at the time wearing his Little League baseball uniform.

Ellie does not believe Scott is guilty, and I also have a hard time believing in his guilt. But this article is not about proving Scott’s guilt or innocence. Rather, it’s a reflection on whether to sentence someone who a committed a crime while under the age of 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which is the case with Scott, who is now 25.

It’s really an issue of whether a young person can be readmitted into society after serving sufficient time in jail and proving that he or she is capable of becoming rehabilitated, or whether some crimes are so horrible that the criminal, regardless of age, should be locked away for life.

It is a moral issue at its most basic.

New York State Judge Jed Rakoff was quoted in a Fortune Magazine article this year as saying: ““It’s interesting how the American public, I’m afraid, is very punitive. There’s a strong moral streak in the American culture.” Known for cracking down on white collar financial industry crimes, he also believes, “There is a moral component to sentencing. Deep in the psyche of human beings, I think, there is a feeling that the world is not right and justice is not being done if bad people aren’t being punished for bad things. That’s what’s meant by just punishment.”

Scott, his mother Esther Fielding, and his current defense lawyer San Francisco-based Kate Hallinan believe he is innocent. Hallinan maintains his original attorney presented an incompetent defense. Dyleski has already lost a direct appeal, but Hallinan is now working on a habeas petition in the California Supreme Court. Recently, a federal judge in San Francisco granted the California Attorney General an extension to show cause why Dyleski should not be granted a new trial.

Hallinan says, regarding LWOP: “I believe he’s innocent. So to consider LWOP in the context of what I know about him, I know who he is, it’s a tragedy. Even if he had committed this egregious crime, there’s no way of knowing what kind of person he’s going to be in 5 years or 10 years or what would have made him commit the crime in the first place.”

Scott himself has opinions on LWOP, as you might imagine. In an interview he said to me: “The most unusual aspect of life without parole is the implicit belief that certain individuals are incapable of redemption. In living with many individuals who have been so deemed, I find it inaccurate. I have yet to meet someone who is totally beyond reform. Despite the horrible things a person may do, he or she is still human – is still capable of change.”

On a 41-34 vote last year, the California State Assembly approved legislation to give youth a second chance to earn parole after serving at least 25 years in prison

“The California State Assembly spoke volumes for who we are as a society – that we believe kids deserve a second chance,” said Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), the bill’s author and a child psychologist. “The neuroscience is clear – brain maturation continues well through adolescence and thus impulse control, planning, and critical thinking skills are not yet fully developed… the bill reflects that science and provides the opportunity for compassion and rehabilitation that we should exercise with minors.”

Under the bill, courts could review cases of juveniles sentenced to life without parole after 15 years, potentially allowing some individuals to receive a new minimum sentence of 25 years to life. The bill would require the offender to show remorse and be working towards rehabilitation in order to submit a petition for consideration of the new sentence. 

Yee has pointed out a sobering thought: "Life without parole means absolutely no opportunity for release. It also means minors are often left without access to programs and rehabilitative services while in prison. This sentence was created for the worst of criminals that have no possibility of reform and it is not a humane way to handle children. While the crimes they committed caused undeniable suffering, these youth offenders are not the worst of the worst."

To secure enough votes to pass in the state Senate, the Assembly amended it to exclude inmates who tortured their victims or killed a police officer or firefighter. The Senate went along with those changes.

Adam Kegwin, the chief of staff for Sen. Yee, says the bill would not apply to Scott Dyleski because he was convicted of cutting satanic symbols into Vitale’s back during the murder. “The bill specifically says that if there’s torture, you’re not qualified. If the crime is so heinous that they did that, they wouldn’t be eligible. It (the Dyleski case) certainly sounds like torture to me… it’s something that’s so horrible, there’s something physically wrong with that person that they would never be released under this bill.”

Attorney Daniel Horowitz, Vitale’s husband, is among those who opposed Yee’s bill. He is quoted as saying releasing most of the thousands of juvenile lifers: "would open the gates of hell. We aren't trying to punish these young people. We are trying to protect the public from this happening again."

Contra Costa County Assistant District Attorney Hal Jewett, who sought the LWOP sentence for Dysleski, told me: “the case was about justice, not about the hope of rehabilitation. I have to acknowledge the probability that there are some people on death row right now who could be rehabilitated. But rehabilitation while relevant is not determinative. There are acts that cannot be undone. And it’s not a question of whether they will ever do it again, it’s not a question of whether they can be rehabilitated… it’s a question of whether their crime was so terrible that they basically forfeited the rest of their lives. That they are not going to have the enjoyment of a free day ever again. Because they deprived somebody else, for all eternity, and perhaps in an extremely brutal and demented way, which are a couple of words I think fairly describe the conduct of Scott Dyleski, and they should be penalized for that. I’ll tell you straight up, I don’t think Scott Dyleski should ever see the light of a free day again. I mean he can be forgiven… but to be allowed to walk the streets again, to even run the possibility that he could cross paths with Dan Horowitz or Pam Vitale’s children.. it’s abhorrent to think that he should ever be out on the street again. Justice requires punishment in some cases and sometimes justice is tough. People who do what he did should never be released.”

In response to Jewett’s remarks, Dyleski said: “I’m not surprised Mr. Jewett believes in my guilt. From the interactions I had with him, I gather that he is a man of certain ardent beliefs and principles. The most important of which, I think, is the idea that some people are, in fact, monsters – monsters from whom society must be protected…. and that he believes I am one of them.”

“Sometimes I find irony in the fact that this plays out in a penitentiary. The concept was invented by the Quakers – pacifist Christians, people with a deep belief in universal human dignity. People were sent there for penance. When they demonstrated sorrow and remorse for their sins, repented, and served the requisite time, they were released.”

County Costa County Judge Barbara Zuniga was asked by Pamela Vitale’s family to impose the LWOP sentence on Dyleski. She did so, saying to him first: “You do not deserve to live among decent people.”

Will the LWOP system of sentencing for minors change? It probably depends on whether our society is capable of change. Can the majority of Americans come to understand what I believe amounts to a New Testament concept of redemption, or a more Old Testament belief in eternal punishment for sins.

Says Dyleski: “Maybe the system will change because we have changed. Is there anything more American than redemption and changing for the better?”

Here’s what I think, through the prism of having been raised as a Jesuit trained Catholic before my Ivy League college education, plus my years as a local, national and international TV news reporter.

There are some sins so terrible that they cannot be forgiven, despite the possibility of reform and contrition. Charles Manson should never be released from prison, and Adolph Hitler should forever rot in Hell.

These are extreme examples, but sometimes human beings are capable of such things.

Does Scott Dyleski deserve this kind of punishment? I don’t think so, because I believe he’s innocent. But also, despite all the evidence to the contrary that I’ve seen, I think that redemption is possible.

Especially for children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




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