Murder and rethinking juvenile sentencing: An interview with Rep. Dan Kagan

Murder and rethinking juvenile sentencing: An interview with Rep. Dan Kagan

State Representative Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, has
introduced a bill to set a new range of sentences for juveniles
convicted of first degree murder. Under current Colorado law, juveniles
convicted of first degree murder face a sentence of life in prison with
the possibility of parole after 40 years. In an interview with Catherine
Strode, Representative Kagan says he believes Colorado’s juveniles
should be sentenced based not only on their crime but on their
individual characteristics and involvement in the crime they committed.

Rep. Dan Kagan, R-Cherry Hills Village

Why are you bringing this bill now?


“For 16 years, we required every judge sentencing a juvenile who
had committed a first degree murder, to life without parole. They were
going to get life without parole regardless of how much they had been
abused during their childhood, regardless of how closely they were
involved in the crime. None of these things could be considered: the
background of the individual, the level of involvement in the crime. The
judge could not consider any of those things. He just had to give that
defendant, although juvenile, life without the possibility of parole.
And we did that for 16 years — until 2006. Then the law changed and all
these juveniles, when they committed their crimes, were sentenced to
life with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Now the Supreme
Court has said mandatory life without the possibility of parole is
unconstitutional to a juvenile; you have to consider the circumstances
of the crime and the circumstances of the criminal himself. This bill is
an attempt at a more just way of making the sentence fit the crime and
fit the offender.