Ex-judge expresses regret for St. Louis teen's long sentence

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 4:07 pm, Wednesday, February 14, 2018

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former St. Louis judge who sentenced a teenager to more than 240 years in prison says she "deeply" regrets her ruling and is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to give him the opportunity for reform.

Evelyn Baker sentenced Bobby Bostic in 1997 for the 1995 robbery of people delivering Christmas presents for the needy. He was 16 at the time of the robbery.

Baker published an op-ed Thursday expressing her regret over the punishment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported .

"Scientists have discovered so much about brain development in the more than 20 years since I sentenced Bostic," she wrote. "What I learned too late is that young people's brains are not static; they are in the process of maturing. ... Overwhelming scientific research shows that children lack maturity and a sense of responsibility compared with adults because they are still growing. But for the same reason, they also have greater capacity for reform."

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Ex-judge-expresses-regret-for-St-Louis-teen-s-12613535.php

[WinstonSmith4740]

1. Sorry. Not buying her apology.

This man has spent more than half his life in prison. I'm not saying there shouldn't have been some punishment, but I don't know what's more ridiculous...the sentence, or her excuse that she learned "too late" that kid's brains aren't fully developed, and they "lack maturity and sense of responsibility". She was an adult. What was her excuse?

[The_jackalope]

4. So you would judge her as harshly as she judged him?

"What was her excuse?" is not just a rhetorical question, it should be part of an honest effort to find out why judges behave the way they do. IMO it should not be used to simply condemn her in the same uncompromising manner she showed with Bostick.

[mpcamb]

12. "Scientists have discovered so much about brain development ..." I call BS on this.

Last edited Thu Feb 15, 2018, 09:45 AM - Edit history (1)

He was a kid.
She said lock him up and throw away the key and now she feels bad about it.
That's a lot too little to late for some newspaper article forgiveness.
Get your sorry behind down to the jails and get other wrongly sentenced youth offenders out if you want forgiveness.
That principal goes back a lot further than 1995.

There's a scene in the Gandi movie where a Hindu guy says he killed a Moslem child- what can he do as amends. Adopt a muslim child and raise him in that religion, Gandi tells him.
Making things right after you've caused great harm isn't so simple.

OK, rants over. I didn't mean to impune her so badly but I do think one doesn't get off the hook so easily decades later.

[yardwork]

2. She didn't know this about sixteen year olds?

The sentence is obscene. Rapists and murderers get far less than this child got.

[gopiscrap]

3. fuck her

[The_jackalope]

5. Tough room.

Compassion is for snowflakes right?

[TomSlick]

13. I have seen little room on DU for people learning and changing their mind.

I would like to think that learning and evolving would be a good thing. Maybe it's by Church upbringing, I'm all about repentance.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Why is he still in jail more than 20 years later?

[Jake Stern]

7. His buddy was smart enough to take the deal and walk away with 30 years.

He and his partner shot two people while robbing them of gifts destined for disadvantaged children then they carjacked and robbed a woman and sexually assaulted her before releasing her.

Let's see:

Armed Robbery X 3
Armed Criminal Action X 3
Aggravated Assault X 3
Sexual Battery

Tell me again why I am supposed to feel pity for him?

[sfwriter]

8. BECAUSE HE WAS A CHILD...

...Why is that so hard to understand.

Doesn't matter what he did, kids can change.


240 year sentences for a minor are obscene.

[MichMan]

10. Is your belief that he should have been sentenced in Juvenile court?......

......and released when he turned 18?

[sfwriter]

11. I'm not sure of Michigan law.

I don't believe that sentences end when you are 18 there. I just checked, sentencing under juvenile court can pass the 21st birthday, resulting in transfer to an adult prison at age 18.

I think that court is a far more appropriate place for this, yes. They have more awareness of a child's plasticity and a juvenile facility would have been better through 18.

So yes, some sort of reasonable sentence was possible, but we started trying children as adults. We saw them as irredeemable, and this poor judge fell for it.

[Journeyman]

9. The woman who raised me was murdered by a 14 year old . . .

She was dragged from her car one sunny afternoon at an intersection in a Los Angeles suburb, pistol whipped, thrown to the ground and shot twice through her left eye. The killer and his partner got some change and half a pack of smokes. The older criminal was 16, the triggerman 14. Both were put in juvenile detention, sentenced there until they were 25, but released when they were 18.

That was 44 years ago last August 9th.

[summer_in_TX]

14. Glad to see the judge is trying to do something about her troubled conscience!

Obviously a terribly unjust sentence and far disproportionate to the crime of stealing Christmas presents.

I'm sure she knew the widespread condemnation she would face for that sentence once it was raised in the public consciousness by her coming forward now after all this time. It cannot have been easy for her. She was probably tempted not to do anything about it. Glad to learn she has a conscience and that she is actively trying to right the wrong she did.

[christx30]

16. It wasn't the stealing of Christmas presents that warranted the sentence.

It was the sexual assault, and the aggravated assault when the boys shot the people they robbed. They committed some pretty terrible acts. If it was just the simple theft, they'd have gotten 6 months to a year, and probably probation. It was the rest of the stuff that got the sentence.

[summer_in_TX]

15. The OP didn't mention murder.

I thought it was robbery without physical harm, just stealing Christmas presents. The judge's emotion that led her to sentence him to a 240 year sentence makes a little more sense if he murdered someone.