Juvenile Criminals

Two 17-year-old girls have been sentenced for torturing and butchering an elderly woman, less than three weeks after a pair of 10-year-olds were charged with murdering a toddler. Again, a troubled nation is asking, how could this happen? Edna Phillips, 70, was throttled with her dog's leash and stabbed or slashed 86 times. The mental images of the crime have shocked the nation just as the video pictures of little James Bulger being led to his death did last month.

Sara Kruzan was 16 when she lured her former pimp into a motel room, shot and killed him and took his money. The terrible crime was committed in Riverside County by a girl who had been sexually molested and physically abused since her earliest days, raised by an addicted mother, gang-raped at 13 and at the same age sent into the streets to make a living as a prostitute by the man she would eventually kill. But teenagers change. Today, at 32, Kruzan is a model prisoner in the honor dorm at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla.

For Drew Birtness, the last straw came when he realized he was arresting the grandchildren of suspects he had picked up years ago. The Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy had been working the streets of East Los Angeles for 21 years, long enough to be hardened by the shootings and deaths and gangs--but also long enough to try something new. "I was tired of picking up kids' bodies off the street," he said.

The Supreme Court for the first time on Monday put a strict constitutional limit on prison terms, ruling it is cruel and unusual punishment to send a young criminal to prison for life with no chance for parole for a crime that does not involve murder. The ruling is the second in recent years to greatly expand the constitutional protections for juveniles. And once again, the justices in the majority said they agreed with international critics who say the United States is out of step when it comes to treatment for the young.

Hours before he was killed, Nick Markowitz thought he was finally going home. It had been a strange, often scary two-day odyssey since a group of young men had snatched him off the street in his West Hills neighborhood and carted him up the coast to Santa Barbara, according to testimony before a Santa Barbara County grand jury released last week.

The case of a 16-year-old girl accused of torturing and beating an elderly woman to death last July will return to adult court, a San Bernardino Juvenile Court judge ruled Thursday. "She has no compassion, no empathy, no morality or decency," Judge John P. Wade said, explaining why he determined that Christy Phillips, who was 15 at the time of the crime, is unfit to be tried in Juvenile Court.

The county's top prosecutor and other elected officials shared a podium with youthful offenders Friday to oppose state budget cuts that could cripple the state's youth camp system, particularly in Los Angeles County. The hearing, held at Camp Karl Holton, a juvenile probation camp in the Angeles National Forest north of San Fernando, was called by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) in response to Gov.

There are no handcuffs, no razor-wire fences, no uniforms, no cells. Missouri does things differently in its prisons for young people, and it shows -- in what you see and what you don't. Inmates, referred to as "kids," live in dorms that feature beanbag chairs, potted plants, stuffed animals and bunk beds with smiley-face comforters. Guards -- who are called "youth specialists" and must have college degrees -- go by their first names and don't hesitate to offer hugs.

Like a lot of 17-year-olds, Robert Davis was a handful for his mother and stepfather. It's not that he did anything terribly wrong, but he could not do much right either. He argued with his parents, he skipped school, he ran off. This spring, he found himself in the state-run China Springs Youth Camp. There, in April, he heard the news. In San Quentin Prison, the television reporter intoned, a murderer named Robert Alton Harris was about to be executed.

An evening of drinking and drugs descended into a grisly, lethal confrontation that ended in the shooting deaths of three young women in Pasadena, court documents filed in the case reveal. Filed in Pasadena Municipal Court in support of murder charges brought against two suspects, the documents are reports of investigations conducted by detectives at the murder scene and their interviews of witnesses and suspects.

The United States is the only nation in which someone can be locked up forever, with no chance for parole, for a crime committed in his or her youth. The Supreme Court is expected in coming days or weeks to rule on whether states may continue this costly, foolish and cruel practice of extinguishing a youth's hope and chances at redemption, even in cases in which no one died. California has 250 people in this position -- condemned to stay in prison until they die for crimes they committed at ages as young as 14; only Pennsylvania and Florida have more.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is debating whether to file criminal charges against three Calabasas youths arrested in connection with recent attacks on redheaded students at a middle school. Sheriff's investigators booked two 12-year-old boys on charges of battery on school property and a 13-year-old boy on charges of cyber-bullying: sending a threat via electronic communication. The case was presented to a juvenile-case prosecutor Monday. The attacks were apparently spurred by a Facebook site and inspired by an episode of the animated "South Park" television show titled "Ginger Kids."

Colton Harris-Moore has been a one-boy crime wave since he was 7 years old. He has broken into houses, stolen cars and burglarized markets, hardware stores and cafes for years on this rural, woodsy island north of Seattle. Since early in 2008, when he escaped from a juvenile holding facility, Harris-Moore, now 18, has been leading police on a fruitless chase through Washington, Canada and Idaho -- stealing two boats and crash-landing three planes (he taught himself to fly on his computer, authorities suspect)

Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he and two older boys broke into a home, where they robbed and raped an elderly woman. After a one-day trial in 1989, Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Terrance Graham was 16 when he and two others robbed a restaurant. When he was arrested again a year later for a home break-in, a Florida judge said he was incorrigible. In 2005, Graham received a life term with no parole. The two young convicts represent an American phenomenon, one the Supreme Court is set to reconsider in the fall term that opens Oct. 5. At issue is whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to imprison a minor until he or she dies when the crime does not involve murder.

A 13-year-old El Monte boy was charged Friday with two felonies for allegedly starting the Morris fire on Aug. 25 that burned more than 2,100 acres north of Azusa, prosecutors said. The youth, whose name was withheld by prosecutors because of his age, is accused of felony arson of a forest and recklessly causing a fire to a forest or structure. Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office, said the boy is not in custody and is scheduled to appear in Juvenile Court in Pomona on Nov. 17. Robison said investigators are not revealing yet how the fire was ignited, but the boy was among a group of people known to be in the area at the time the fire began.

Authorities used pepper spray to help end a racially charged fight among two dozen juvenile prisoners at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu over the weekend, authorities said. The brawl began with name-calling between an African American and a Latino in the camp's dormitory about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, said L.A. County Chief Probation Officer Robert Taylor. The brawl lasted about an hour, and two staff members and several inmates suffered minor injuries. Twenty-three inmates were removed from the camp and housed at two other facilities, and one of the housing units sustained minor damage, Taylor said.

Sen Nguyen lived a mother's nightmare. Her 13-year-old daughter, Phuong Nguyen, was near death this week after two bullets allegedly fired by a reputed gang member at the Westminster Mall struck her in the back. "Doctors kept telling me at first there might not be any hope for her, and I was afraid every time the phone rang," Nguyen said Friday. "But I came in to see her (Thursday afternoon), and she opened her eyes to look at me. That's when I knew she will live."

Assume you're trying to land a job during a time when the economic pendulum is barely beginning to swing up. Assume further that you have little or no experience at any job of any kind. And, by the way, you have a recent criminal record. As far as much of the world of employment is concerned, you're persona non grata.

Nearly a year ago, Jocelyn Mull's teenage son was shot and killed by an alleged gang member in a Hollywood parking lot. Los Angeles police arrested a 17-year-old suspect soon after, but in what prosecutors called a "highly unusual" move, the judge released the suspect to home arrest. Ever since, Mull, 36, has waged a campaign to have the suspected gunman tried as an adult and held in jail.

Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to an 8-year-old boy charged with murder in the shooting deaths of his father and another man, court records show. Complete details of the offer weren't spelled out in a court filing posted Saturday on the Apache County Superior Court's website. But Apache County Atty.