When Kids Get Life

>> Nate and I were kids.

We became men in the joint.

We never got to graduate high school or go to college, or really do anything that a normal adult does.

Our whole adult life has been here, where nothing's normal.

>> NARRATOR: In the United States, there are more than 2,200 young offenders who have been sentenced to life without parole for having committed murder in their teens.

>> They took lives.

They took sons, they took mothers, they took fathers, they took aunts, they took uncles.

They took so much away from people, and we can never get it back.

>> These are the worst of the worst.

There's no question about that.

(gunshots) (sirens) (gunshots) >> We knew Trevor was going to do some time in prison.

Nobody ever said he was-- he was innocent.

And 12 or 15 years seems much more appropriate than automatic life without parole.

>> They're going to put me in this warehouse until I die.

That's about really what they want.

So sometimes there's real despair and hopelessness.

Okay, there's a whole lot of life out there, and you're no part of it.

>> You know, I don't care if he finds a cure for cancer in there, he should never get out of prison.

>> Vengeance is not justice; vengeance is vengeance.

>> Life without parole sends the message you are not worthy of rehabilitation, you're worthless, you're a monster, you're not fit for society and you're a dangerous, rabid animal that needs to be kept away.

>> NARRATOR: Tonight on Frontline, a story set in one state, Colorado, where 45 young offenders have been sent to prison for the rest of their natural lives.

(sirens) >> Teller County Sheriff calls the scene gruesome.

>> NARRATOR: It was one of the most heinous crimes in Colorado in 1992.

>> Scene of the double homicide.

We'll be entering the house right now.

Looks like a scuffle may have taken place in here.

(gunshots) Quite a bit of blood lost.

(gunshots) Okay, coming around the bedroom.

(gunshots) >> NARRATOR: 15-year-old Jacob Ind and a classmate brutally killed his mother and stepfather.

Jacob is now 29 years old.

>> In another year, I would have had just as much time in prison as out of prison.

All my conscious life I've been more in prison than out.

I mean, my mind's a mess when it comes to my past, trying to sort everything out.

I mean, it's... there's so many paradoxes in there, it's just hard to wrap my brain around.

>> I could not forget about Jacob.

For some reason, he haunted me.

>> NARRATOR: Mary Ellen Johnson, who would eventually write a book about the case, first heard about it from her daughter, who was Jacob's classmate.

>> Everybody was talking about it.

This was a very unusual happening in a small town, a small mountain town, and nobody could remember a murder happening there.

They lived in a very lovely home.

They had a big motor home parked outside of their house.

The house sat up on a hill with a fabulous view.

I used to drive by it and think, "I wonder who lives in that kind of a house."

They were a very handsome couple.

They were like the perfect parents.

The boys were very well- behaved-- "Yes, ma'am, no, sir."

They were the perfect family.

>> NARRATOR: But the family was not as perfect as it seemed.

>> The home was filled with fear and anxiety.

Every morning was an assessment on what's going to happen that day, what kind of mood are they going to be in.

Is it going to be a halfway decent day?

>> NARRATOR: Charles, four years older than Jacob, is now a therapist.

>> I always remember coming back from school and being able to relax, until we heard the garage door open, and just the overwhelming feeling of panic, because then again, we had to reassess on what's going to happen that night.

>> NARRATOR: What often happened was abuse-- emotional and physical-- and one they never talked about, even to each other: sexual.

Sexual abuse inflicted by their stepfather, Kermode Jordan, who married their mother when the boys were four and eight.

In August 1992, when he was 18 years old, Charles moved out of the house.

>> For the first time I said, "No, I won't be around this man any longer.

"I'm not going to take it, I don't deserve it, and I'm leaving."

>> NARRATOR: But before he left, he says, he went to Social Services to ask them to keep an eye on his brother.

>> This was part of my plan.

I went to ask if he could help my brother.

And he said, "I have my notes, and I'll-- and we'll start an investigation."

>> Did they?

>> No.

>> NARRATOR: The social worker would claim that he didn't remember this part of the conversation, when a few months later, Jacob shot his mother and stepfather to death.

(gunshots) >> The 16-year-old is charged with first degree murder for killing his mother and stepfather, Pam and Kermode Jordan, in their Woodland Park home... >> When these homicides happen they tend to be some of the worst crime scenes you'll ever see.

Now, the term "heinous" may go to what they're talking about, the nature of the kid, that the kid is a heinous person.

I don't agree with that.

These kids, by and large, are responding to typically horrific situations at home.

They see no way out, and when they kill, through a confluence of circumstances, that's supposed to be unexpected.

But if you look at their lives, it unfortunately follows a tragedy that is waiting to happen.

>> The 16-year-old boy spent the day stoically watching a parade of witnesses, but occasionally smiling.

>> NARRATOR: Jacob's trial took place two years later in 1994.

>> ...to evaluate the 16-year-old after he shot and killed his mother and stepfather... >> NARRATOR: It was in the news every day.

>> ...nervously twitching a pen, was in from the beginning on the killing of his own parents... >> NARRATOR: The one witness who could shed light on Jacob's life at home was his older brother Charles.

>> There were many secrets in the house that we didn't tell people.

I did my best, as far as explaining to the court, the type of environment that we were in, the pain that we were experiencing and being inflicted upon.

Even the sexual abuse.

I broke my code of silence, and in front of the whole world to see with cameras rolling and everything.

He would basically rape us.

He would wait until we got home, oftentimes sneaking up behind me or Jacob, and throwing us into the bathroom-- literally taking us by the shoulders and tossing us into the bathroom-- and there he would hit-- hit us across the face and body and say, "Get on the toilet," and he would pull the ropes out from underneath the credenza.

Have us get undressed, then tie us.

He would start... start to masturbate.

And after he was done he would get dressed and say, "You're so (bleep) dirty.

Go and take a (bleep) shower."

Always laughing.

It-- it was always, I mean, to say it was maniacal would be an understatement.

Just laughing, chuckling, pleased with himself.

>> Ind has never said-- at least on record-- that he was molested, but his brother testified that it happened to both boys.

>> The problem is that child abuse is the perfect crime.

It's a perfect crime because parents who do it seal their own protection because they know the kids are typically, A, not going to fight back, and, B, typically not report.

Because as bad as children get treated by their parents, that parent is still the caregiver.

That parent still is the nourisher, and it's very difficult for the average human being to fight against that person, to rebel against that person, and that's why parricide is such a unique offense.

>> Did your mother know?

>> I think she did know, in the back of her mind.

I think she was very much in denial about the true nature of Kermode.

>> In a lot of cases of parricide, they'll be just as angry at the person who throws them to the wolves, so to speak, and even if the mother weren't doing anything, the kids will say, "Why didn't you protect us?"

In Jacob's case, not only didn't she protect him, she was doing the same things to him, and it wasn't just sexual abuse.

I mean, she treated him horrendously.

>> Well, not only was she unhappy with her marriage, she was also unhappy with being pregnant with her second child.

He was about eight, nine months old and we went in-- she did not know I had followed her in there-- and she just kind of grabbed Jacob and she goes, "I just hate you, I just..." She goes, "I wish you had never been born," you know?

>> Jacob was conceived to save the marriage, to repair it.

And he became the representation of her broken dreams.

And I think in many, many respects she resented Jacob's entire existence.

>> NARRATOR: Growing up, Jacob began to cut himself.

>> All my life I've been a cutter.

When things get hard, I cut on myself and it makes me feel better.

I get this huge ball of...

I couldn't even name the emotion.

I mean, it was just chaos inside, and cutting would be the only way to release it.

>> NARRATOR: No one paid attention.

>> When your cries for help go unheard, there are no options.

At that point, and I understand this is where Jacob was coming from, this was pure survival.

>> Some of the evidence prosecutors brought out today included a baseboard, a door, and part of a wall.

All are splattered with blood.

>> There has to be some type of force impacting the blood, causing the blood to... >> The extreme damage done to the child is reflected in the rage of the homicide.

They have to use the baseball bat numerous times.

They have to stab numerous times.

They never fire one bullet from a gun, they fire the whole barrel.

It's not just "bang" and you're dead.

Never happens like that.

Never, never, never.

>> But is abuse a reason to commit murder?

A question the jury must eventually answer.

>> For years, I mean, when things get real bad I'd be able to tell myself, "Okay, but they'll be gone soon."

I'd say, "I don't have to put up with it much longer."

I took sanctuary within that fantasy of it being over.

And it's still almost half fantasy for me, all the way until the point of the murders.

I mean, even when-- up until the first trigger was actually pulled, it was still to me half fantasy.

All I wanted was something to end.

I didn't really grasp the permanency of their deaths.

Definitely didn't understand the gravity of what it means to kill somebody.

I mean, I didn't think that they would feel pain.

I didn't think that anybody else would be affected.

And now when I think back and I realize the amount of pain, it's like "Oh, my God."

I mean, I remember I was sitting in the police station-- I mean this is how out of touch with reality I was-- I had a small amount of marijuana, like an eighth of an ounce in my bedroom, and I'm telling my brother you got to get the marijuana or else I'm in trouble.

I'm arrested for first degree murder and I don't think I'm in trouble.

I'm telling my brother get my homework from school, and get my absence excused.

I didn't know what they were going to do with me, but I sure didn't think I was in trouble.

I had no concept, at all, of what was going on.

>> So the trial was agonizing, and it was painful and I certainly didn't feel as though human dignity was ever served, or let alone justice.

>> As for count number one, we the jury find the defendant, Jacob Ind, guilty of first degree murder.

>> They came down with a first degree murder sentence.

They said, according to the letter of the law, first degree murder is what he did.

>> As for count number two... >> If you look at around the country at the way people are treated who committed homicide, we treat most leniently those parents who kill their children, and we treat most harshly the teenagers who kill their parents.

>> Even the judge at sentencing said, "My hands are tied; I have no choice."

And she handed him his life sentence.

>> NARRATOR: Colorado, where Jacob will be incarcerated for the rest of his life, was once one of the most progressive states in the country.

>> Colorado was always considered advanced in terms of its juvenile justice system.

And the city and county of Denver had one of the few juvenile courts, a court that was designated that it only involved juvenile justice.

And we developed a youth correctional system that was known nationally-- if not internationally-- for its treatment of youth offenders; particularly violent youth offenders.

>> These courts were founded on the principle that we don't really care what the child did, we care why he got to court.

We wanted to know the background of his life, his social circumstances, in some occasions his psychological circumstances.

And the courts sought to bring to bear on this child's life and his family's life whatever resources they had available to correct this developmental deviation.

>> NARRATOR: There were formal, well-defined procedures to follow when children were transferred from juvenile to adult court.

>> If a district attorney believed that a child's case should be held in adult court, they would make a request of the court.

There would be a comprehensive hearing, the juvenile would be represented by an attorney, the prosecutor would be present at the hearing, and the court would receive a wide array of information about why the child should be transferred to criminal court or why a child should remain in juvenile court.

>> When we were growing up there was an expectation that children had the right to fail.

They had the right to make mistakes.

In some cases, we made very significant mistakes.

But people didn't throw in the towel for us.

They were willing to allow us to learn from those mistakes, to move forward and become productive citizens.

I think society now is very unforgiving.

Society is very intolerant and has no patience for even children.

(sirens) >> NARRATOR: The change in attitude and policy was triggered by a sharp, highly publicized increase in violent crimes committed by young offenders during the late 1980s and '90s.

>> Every 92 minutes, an American child dies as a result of gunfire.

>> Nationwide, younger and younger teens are committing more and more heinous crimes.

>> The FBI says every American now has a realistic chance of being a murder victim.

>> There is no avoiding driving through "bad neighborhoods" because the bad neighborhoods are coming to a place near you.

>> NARRATOR: In Colorado, the events of 1993 were labeled by the press as "The Summer of Violence."

>> There has been an epidemic of kids using guns in the Denver metropolitan area.

>> In Denver, another young shooting victim is clinging to life, while some grownups now are saying, "Enough."

>> The killing has continued, and summer is only half over.

>> So there was a lot of publicity about it.

Many of the crimes still were never solved, but the community had great fear.

>> We have a bunch of wild animals running out there.

We have to get them off the street and quit poisoning the rest of our children.

>> The media covered these stories over and over and over again.

I think that's what drove the governor to ask for a special session.

>> Governor Romer brought back all of our legislators to consider the issues related to youth violence and juvenile crime, and policymakers met in one of the most intensive five-day periods that I've ever experienced, looking at how could we become tougher on crime.

So it became a process of almost one-upsmanship.

I remember very vividly one of the leaders of the state House of Representatives going to the podium on the second or third evening and describing what was going on around him as a feeding frenzy.

>> NARRATOR: The legislature seized upon a simple formula: youths who committed adult crimes should be treated as adults.

And because adults could be sentenced, since 1991, to life without parole, so would juveniles.

>> And I'm not sure we really even knew what we were doing when we decided that juveniles should be direct filed on and should start serving life without parole.

That was very reactive.

But the whole identity of children got lost, and we started seeing prosecutors say things like, "These aren't children, these are murderers."

>> NARRATOR: Charging juveniles as adults was left to the discretion of the prosecutors.

They could now file charges directly, taking the process out of the hands of judges.

>> Since I have been on the bench in juvenile court since September of 1998, we have not had a transfer hearing in Denver Juvenile Court.

The cases that have been held-- the juvenile cases that have gone to adult court, that decision has been solely made by the District Attorney's office based upon the charge that they have decided to file against the juvenile, as well as the child's age.

>> We do that, we make that decision.

Are we going to treat this individual as a juvenile, or are we going to treat him as an adult?

I have to tell you, in first degree murder-- and these kinds of first degree murders-- most of the time we treat them as adults.

These are egregious crimes.

>> Crime has always been a big political issue and so it's very easy for politicians to say, "Let's punish, let's make the sentences longer, let's not let people get out."

>> NARRATOR: Norm Mueller is a defense attorney in Denver who has been practicing there for 35 years.

>> There are two cases that I was personally involved with that I think illustrate the change that has occurred in Colorado.

In the late '80s, I represented a 14-year-old boy who was charged with first degree murder.

It was a direct file.

He was charged with first degree murder as an adult, and the result of that case was that he-- while he sustained a felony conviction as an adult, he was given a five-year sentence to the juvenile justice system.

That case is very similar to the Erik Jensen case.

Both of them fit the profile of being with somebody else who committed a murder, and serving, probably, more fundamentally as an accessory.

Yet Erik Jensen was prosecuted also as an adult, but given life without parole in prison.

>> NARRATOR: Erik Jensen, now 25, has been in prison for eight years.

>> Where would we be today if Erik weren't there?

We'd probably have moved-- at least for the wintertime-- to some other place, so it has kept us here because we don't think about, "Let's go buy a house someplace else."

We think about, "Let's stay here where we can stay close enough to Erik that we can go see him on the weekends."

It's like other people say, "It's Sunday, it's time to go to church."

We say, "It's Sunday, it's time to go see Erik."

>> NARRATOR: It's a roundtrip of six hours.

>> We just don't think about it anymore; it's just something that we do.

How can I not do that?

He's my son.

I really and truly I don't think there's been a day go by that we haven't talked about him in one way or another.

He's always on our mind.

>> NARRATOR: At home, in a wealthy suburb of Denver, Curt Jensen, a venture capitalist, and his wife, Pat, cling to everything their son Erik ever owned: his toys, his baseball caps, his musical instruments, his paintings.

>> You go through the same stages of grief that you go through when someone dies.

First you're distraught and you cry all the time, and then you deny, and then you get angry, and then eventually you accept.

And so, I'm sort of at the acceptance stage, but I'm still angry.

>> NARRATOR: It all started when 15-year-old Nathan Ybanez came into their lives as the new guitarist in Erik's band, named Troublebound.

>> We just clicked.

I know somebody who is loyal, and I value it above pretty much everything else.

And Nate is, above everything else, loyal.

And I saw it in him immediately.

>> He was a really nice boy.

He was always pleasant, extremely well-behaved.

There was something about him when I first met him that made me a little uncomfortable, but I couldn't tell you what it was.

It wasn't something about Nathan in particular, it was just a... a feeling I got when I met him that there was trouble ahead.

>> NARRATOR: When trouble came one year later, it was beyond anything she could have imagined.

>> 16-year-old Nathan Ybanez, a troubled teen, allegedly beat and strangled his mother to death.

If convicted, Ybanez could spend life in prison without parole.

>> We were so shocked.

It was just like out of the blue to us.

I mean, we knew there were things going on, but it didn't seem like it was that extreme that it would cause that kind of reaction.

>> Four days after Julie Ybanez was killed, Erik and I had a long talk about what went on, and he told me exactly what had happened.

He said that he had driven home Nathan from work that day.

Nathan apparently felt very agitated that night.

He said, "Well, I'm going to go up."

Erik waited in the car for quite a while, 20 minutes to half an hour.

Went up to the door and knocked and Nathan's mother, Julie, answered the door.

She immediately told Erik to go to Nathan's bedroom, which he did.

He started to walk into the room and as he walked into the room he turned and looked over his shoulder and he saw Nathan strike his mother with a fireplace instrument.

Nathan was yelling, "You'll never do this to me again.

You'll never do this to me again."

>> Basically I was panicking at that point.

After, you know, 15 or 20 seconds, I heard silence and so I figured that their fight was done.

There's a dividing wall in the middle of the house, and when I came around it, there was blood everywhere.

>> And Erik looked down and said, "I don't know what you're doing."

At that point, Nathan handed him the fireplace instrument and then he just fell over and, I think, fainted.

>> There was a pool of blood on the floor.

I ended up on my knees in it, right there.

And that's when it-- it ended up he strangled her.

>> Nathan had her in a stranglehold with the fireplace instrument, and she was dead.

>> I couldn't believe it.

I really couldn't believe that he hadn't stopped it or that he hadn't run away or something and tried to get help, or tried to stop Nate, or something.

>> I'm sure there was a lot I could have done; I didn't do any of it.

So, I guess, like I said, in retrospect I should... it should have never started, ever.

>> Erik was pretty much a normal kid.

I don't think he could have really understood what was going on and grasped the situation involved.

So I don't think he was prepared for anything like that to happen.

He knew that things were messed up in my house between myself and my parents, but... he was just a kid, you know?

>> NARRATOR: It wasn't just Erik who couldn't understand what was going on in the Ybanez household.

His parents, too, had been troubled.

>> The more we got to know of Nathan and to know his parents, it became rather painfully obvious that there was something wrong.

His parents thought he was not doing well in school and would periodically blame that on the band.

♪ ♪ They would come to one of the band's performances and everything would be wonderful, and then the next week they would tell him he couldn't be in the band anymore, and they'd come and get his stuff and they'd leave because they thought the boys were a bad influence or something.

And then... (sighs) Then, two weeks later they'd let him come back.

I mean, it was that up and down reward/punishment kind of thing, it just drove me crazy.

>> A lot of times I was just trying to do what other normal kids were doing, but for me it was always this insane battle.

I mean, I had to...

I had to fight, you know, logically and... and... and plead and beg just to do normal things that other kids were doing.

It was very stressful and difficult.

>> I used to talk to his mother a lot.

At one point she asked if Nathan could stay at our house for two weeks, which I thought was really strange, given their behavior before.

She and her husband were having problems and they were trying to work out a reconciliation.

She said she was afraid-- and that was the word she used, she was afraid-- that if she... if Nathan were there with them while she and her husband were trying to make up, that her husband would hurt him.

That's what she said.

She said, "I'm just-- I'm afraid for Nathan."

>> NARRATOR: Pat was constantly startled by Julie's revelations.

>> She told me two or three times that she followed him when he would go to work or when he was going-- he went to a dance or something, and she followed him.

>> A normal parent, I'm sure, wants to know what their kid is doing, but I doubt they follow him around at 3:00 in the morning when they're, you know, out TP-ing.

>> All the boys stayed over here a lot because Erik had his own place down in the basement and so they had some privacy.

So at least three or four times a week, he would call and ask their parents if they could stay over.

And Nathan was never allowed to stay over.

He would call and ask his mother if he could stay, and he'd be on the phone for an hour.

>> And he was like, you know, "I'm going to call my mom."

And I was like, "That's cool."

So he'd go in to call his mom, and the rest of us all stayed out there.

About a hour or so went by, and, you know, we started realizing, you know, "Where's Nate?"

And I went into-- I went into the house to go check to find out where he was, and he was sitting in the room-- in a dark room-- and talking to his mom and his voice was a lot different than I was used to hearing it.

It was like childish almost, and he was saying things like, you know, "I love you," and "You know I love you; you know I would do that for you" and this and that.

And kind of creeped me out.

So I grabbed another phone in a different room to hear what was going on and his mom was on the other end talking about, you know, "Why don't you take care of me?

"You're supposed to take care of me tonight.

You're supposed to love me tonight," and variations of that for over and over for a good ten, 15 minutes.

And I wasn't quite sure how to take that, how to deal with that.

I hung up and Nate ended up not being able to stay over.

>> The way my mother was is she always brought it down to an issue of whether or not I loved her, so a lot of time she would bring that down to the level of, "Well, you know, you don't want to come home because you don't love me," or stuff like that.

>> That was the first time I realized that there might be a whole lot more going on.

And I guess there's just no really good way to broach that subject with your friend.

You know, it's not something that kids talk about.

Everybody pretty much suspected it and nobody actually came right out and said it.

>> There's a lot of things that we think-- problems that we have in our lives that we think we're keeping hidden so well.

A lot of it's just not hidden at all.

Other people know it quite easily.

My mother, a lot of times it would happen like this: she's crying or something's sad, so I don't like to see her cry, so I ask her what's wrong.

I try to get her to talk about whatever it was that was making her sad, and a lot of times it would, you know, it would involve me coming and giving her hugs and staying in bed with her and letting her unload.

And a few times that evolved into her doing sexual things to me that she shouldn't have been doing.

>> Did you... what was your feeling at that point?

>> I was afraid and embarrassed, and I wanted to go away.

>> Not enjoying it in the least?

>> No, not at first.

But, you know, those types of physical responses are inherently, you know, enjoyable, but it's not the kind of...

It's like-- it's like-- it's like having oil on your skin, you know what I mean?

It's a dirty sensation.

You don't want it there, you want to scrape it off.

Does that make sense?

>> Yeah, yeah.

Did you ever discuss it with her?

>> No, I didn't want to talk about any of that.

I mean, the least I talked about things, and when I kept them away, I was kind of hoping that they would just go away.

And then if I don't talk about them, if they stay away and hidden, then they'll go away, and then things can be... maybe be normal here sometime soon.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Erik and Brett Baker, another member of the band, felt that Nathan needed help.

>> We tried to do things ourselves for a little while, you know, because Nate ran away a couple of times.

But every time he ran away, he would get brought right back.

So Brett and I tell both of our parents all the stuff that we know that we've, you know, figured out so far, which is basically we know his dad's beating him, we know they're mentally messing with him at some point, and I'm suspecting that the mom's doing something worse.

>> The fact that Erik came to us and asked us to help in this situation was difficult for him, to tell us something personal about his friend that his friend probably didn't want us to know, and to ask us to get involved and get-- that was a hard thing for him to do.

>> NARRATOR: The Jensens consulted a county social service worker.

>> The unofficial view of the department was that they didn't have enough people or staff or money to take care of boys who were in their teens, and that those boys were seen to be able to take care of themselves.

>> So we can't do anything?

You know, there's nothing to do here?

And she said, you know, "I can fill something out, but I'm telling you, nothing will happen."

And we were just appalled.

>> It made me so-- so mad to know that that type of stuff was happening to people, you know?

Because honestly, I live in a sheltered-- I grew up sheltered, you know?

My parents are perfect, damn near, you know?

If I did something wrong, I got grounded.

Never hit me.

They were always there to give me the right lessons.

You know, I always had food, I always had a warm place to sleep.

I never felt like I was worthless.

And here's this other kid who's getting the exact opposite from me, and I thought, "How am I the first person that's noticed this, really?

"How has there not been somebody in the last 16 years "that hasn't looked at this kid and thought, you know, 'Why not help him?'"

>> NARRATOR: Eventually, the prosecution would argue that Erik's very concern and care for his friend were instrumental in Nathan killing his mother.

It was June 5, 1998.

>> That day was basically the same as any other.

Nate called earlier in the day and asked if I'd give him a ride home.

And he was telling me, "Man, you know things are really going bad."

And I told him, "Well, you know, we'll talk more when I come pick you up."

>> NARRATOR: Erik picked up Nathan at the bagel store where he worked.

Nathan was anxious and depressed.

>> Things reached a point where I just couldn't-- couldn't keep everything that had been going on inside of myself anymore.

I knew that something had to be done, but I wasn't sure what.

I wasn't sure if I was going to kill myself or what was going to happen.

It felt like I was in a little box, and it kept getting smaller and the box has sharp things on it that cut me every now and then.

And all I want to do is get outside the box and have some peace.

But I got to the point where I realized that, well, there is no escape from the box.

It's not possible to get out.

>> NARRATOR: He talked about killing his parents.

>> I could not fathom that anybody actually could do that, that that was even an option, killing anybody.

I didn't take it seriously because I couldn't imagine that it could be serious.

>> I hit her.

And it just escalated and didn't stop.

>> Was it rage?

>> No, it was more sadness.

>> You killed her with sadness?

>> Excuse me?

I was sad.

I was very sad.

>> Did she know what was going on?

>> I think that she did.

>> Did you know what was going on?

>> I think that I did, too.

>> It's not something you can plan for.

I think it took both of us completely by surprise.

>> Several years later we were talking about this and he said, you know, "It all happened in, like, a minute.

"It was over.

45 seconds, a minute and it was over."

And I said, "What?"

Because when it's described, when you heard it being described at the trial and when Erik was talking about it before, it sounded like it took forever, it went on and on and on.

And he said, "No.

I got there, I ran in the other room, I looked around, I came back in, and half a minute later, it was over."

Before you even have a chance to decide what you want to do, it's over.

So then he said he helped Nate clean up the mess.

They called Brett over to help clean up.

They took all the messy stuff away, and they threw it in dumpsters and things.

And helped Nate carry his mother's body that they rolled up in a rug, put it in the car, and Nate took off and they came home and said nothing.

>> It was at least a couple of hours later before Brett and I were both kind of going, "Somebody's actually dead."

Like, there were several times during that night when I thought for sure that his mom was going to get up and, like, be pissed at us because it just did not occur to me that she was actually dead.

>> NARRATOR: Nathan was arrested a few hours later, standing dazed near his car in an empty parking lot, his mother's body beside him.

He was charged as an adult with first degree murder.

Erik was charged with destroying evidence and was out on bail under electronic surveillance.

But then Brett, who had also helped clean up the crime scene and who had two prior charges against him, made a deal with the prosecution implicating Erik in the murder by saying that Erik had told him that he, too, hit Julie Ybanez.

All of Brett's charges were then dismissed, as Erik's charges changed to conspiracy to commit murder and complicity in murder.

>> When they charged him with murder, they just came to the door and took him away.

He was shaking so badly that he could hardly stand up, he was so afraid.

Having them take your child away and knowing that you have no control, that there's nothing that you can do to protect him from whatever's going to happen, is probably the most helpless, horrible feeling that I've ever had, ever, in my whole life.

>> NARRATOR: Erik's trial was scheduled first, with discussions going on between his lawyer and the district attorney about a plea bargain.

Then, it happened.

(sirens) >> ...rushing up beneath a second floor window to grab this wounded boy.

>> There was gunshots, and we all got down, and we crawled out.

>> He shot a girl outside.

>> Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado, on the edge of Denver... >> This isn't Kosovo; this is Littleton, Colorado, a prosperous suburb of Denver.

>> My trial came like two, three months after Columbine.

And there's no sympathy for rich little suburban white kids who kill.

>> Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the killers are much less of a mystery today.

>> Every day leading up to Erik's trial, including the time of his trial, it was on the news about Columbine every day.

Our address is Littleton, Colorado.

Our son was named Erik.

There was another boy named Eric, from Littleton, Colorado, that killed his classmates.

Being from the same area, there was no possible way, in my opinion, that he could have gotten a fair trial.

>> NARRATOR: On August 11, 1999, Erik was found guilty of destroying evidence, conspiracy to commit murder and complicity in murder.

He was sentenced to life without parole.

>> What did he actually do besides cleaning up?

>> I don't remember him doing anything.

I don't understand why he was even brought to prison at all, because he didn't do anything.

So I was pretty shocked.

But at the time I was also-- I was just going through jail myself, and so it was hard to fathom everything that was going on.

>> Today we're bringing you highlights from Nathan Ybanez's murder trial held a few months ago in Castle Rock, Colorado.

Such a sad story of a young boy gone bad.

>> NARRATOR: Nathan's trial for first degree murder took place a couple of months later in the fall of 1999 and lasted three days, including jury selection and the sentencing.

It was broadcast and then rebroadcast on national television, with Nathan always presented as "the bad seed."

>> These kids have a hole in their soul, ladies and gentlemen.

You could drive a truck through it.

>> At trial, the prosecutor didn't really have a clear motive for me.

They said they didn't know why I had done what I'd done, and they weren't sure if they'd ever really know, ever.

Just seemed to be something without a reason.

>> Bad kid?

>> That's what they thought.

I think that they thought I was a bad kid.

>> NARRATOR: The defense attorney chose not to call any witnesses at all and refuses to comment on the case without a court order.

>> I think that the lawyer's real job was to make sure that people didn't testify on my behalf and that I didn't get up and say anything about what was going on and that I just went to prison quietly, without much fanfare.

>> And that's what happened.

>> That's what happened, yeah.

>> NARRATOR: It has been eight years.

While the Jensens' weekly visits to Erik continued, there was some change in the political atmosphere.

In spite of the dire predictions of the '80s and '90s, teenage crime rates went down.

Fear of young offenders seemed to subside somewhat.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juveniles, and there were some discussions across the country about reexamining the harsh punishments meted out to juvenile offenders.

>> Only 35 more miles.

>> NARRATOR: In Colorado, Pat and Curt Jensen contributed by investing their time and money in a foundation they called Pendulum.

>> We couldn't stand the thought that there would be other parents going through the same thing if we could help it.

We thought that we would form an organization that would try to change the laws, try to change the way things were done here so that no other parent ever had to go through what we went through.

>> It's been an ongoing battle now for six years, basically for educating the public and for working with the state legislature.

It's a battle that only ends when this state legislature and the next governor agree that juveniles have to be treated differently than adults and that they have to be given a second chance.

>> NARRATOR: By 2006, after a vigorous campaign by the local media and lobbying by the Pendulum foundation, a bill sponsored by Republican Representative Lynn Hefley finally reached the legislature.

The passage of the bill was fraught with tensions.

The victims' families were adamantly against it, while the powerful District Attorney's Council agreed only to a watered down bill, which changed the sentence for juveniles from life to 40 years with possible parole at the end.

The new law would apply only to future offenders.

It would not apply to the 45 juveniles in Colorado already serving life without parole.

>> The decision not to make it retroactive was probably a compromise, perhaps a political deal.

Don't forget, the families of victims are very powerful advocates.

One could certainly argue that if you were to make this law retroactive and re-sentence these juveniles to something less than life without parole, that you are taking something away from the families of victims.

What they felt was that a sentence that reflected a justice-- perhaps a vengeance-- that they felt they deserved because of the loss that they suffered.

And I can certainly understand the politics of such a thing, of such a deal.

>> Do you understand the justice of such a deal?

>> Well, that's a very good question.

I don't know that I understand the justice of such a deal.

I think the politics of criminal punishment in the U.S. often trump issues of justice, so I'll understand it better as a political question than as a justice question.

>> NARRATOR: Mitch Morrisey, the District Attorney in Denver, fought hard against making the law retroactive.

His main reason, he says, was the victims' families.

>> I have dealt with these families.

I have been in these murder scenes.

I've personally been involved in handling a lot of these cases.

And again, we are talking about, for the most part, juvenile offenders that are some of the worst murderers in the history of the state of Colorado.

And I don't think their age has anything to do with it.

These are horrendous crimes.

>> They took lives.

They took sons, they took mothers, they took fathers, they took aunts, they took uncles.

They took so much away from people, and we can never get it back.

Their family gets to go to the prison system and spend Thanksgiving with them.

We never got that.

We have to go to the cemetery.

>> NARRATOR: Gail Palone is the mother of a victim of juvenile crime.

Her son was killed ten years ago by then 17-year-old Trevor Jones.

>> When Trevor was found guilty, they promised us that he would get life in prison with no chance of parole.

The state promised us that, and the state should see to that that's what happens.

>> NARRATOR: Gail's only child, Matthew Foley, was killed when he was 16.

>> Matthew was a very giving, kind kid.

He was the type of kid that brightened any room when he walked into it.

He lived for sports, from the time he was little.

I didn't have to worry about him watching violent movies or anything on TV because sports was on our TV all the time.

He wanted to go to Notre Dame.

He wanted to be a sports journalist.

He was just a great kid.

>> NARRATOR: Trevor Jones did not do as well at that age.

When he was 14, he started skipping school, and within the next three years he drifted into alcohol and drugs.

He had a record of several misdemeanor charges for fighting and driving under the influence.

Then, in November 1996, he saw a chance to make some money off his classmate, Matt Foley.

Matt was looking to buy a handgun for his cousin.

>> I know that his cousin had asked him to go buy a gun, and I know that he was shopping with a friend.

And he went to the mall, and they kept paging him, Trevor did.

And had-- I guess they had already set that up.

>> NARRATOR: Trevor devised a scheme to con Matt and arranged a meeting in a parking lot.

>> The scheme was that I would pretend I was going to sell him the gun, and then him to give me the money, and then I tell him to let me see the gun again so I could show him something about it, and then I would have both the money and the gun and then we could leave.

It was supposed to be kind of a foolproof scheme because you can't really go and say, "Hey, I was trying to buy a gun from a guy and he took my money."

>> Because it's illegal.

>> Because it is illegal.

>> NARRATOR: But it was not foolproof.

(gunshot) Suddenly, Trevor said, the gun discharged.

>> I didn't really realize what had happened, and then I heard J.P. scream something.

And then I realized something really bad had happened.

>> NARRATOR: He turned around, he said, and ran.

He hid outside through the night, then read in the paper that Matt Foley was dead.

>> It was horrible just knowing I'd shot him.

I didn't mean to shoot him at all, and then I find out that he died.

And there's really no words to describe it, you know,...

I really can't put words to it.

>> The police came to our door.

I knew.

I knew something was wrong.

He was the type of kid that was always home on time.

And he had a pager so I could page him, and even if he was on the highway coming home from the movies or something, he would get off the highway to call me.

And he never called me back, so I knew.

>> The police told us that Matt was dead, but I didn't really know that Trevor was wanted for killing him.

>> NARRATOR: Jennifer is Trevor Jones' older sister.

>> And my mom kept saying, "He was friends with Matt, he was friends with Matt," so it was just... it was just kind of confusing.

I was trying to keep my mom calm.

My dad wasn't there, he was at work.

And so I told her just-- just wait, and wait till you talk to Trevor.

You don't know, you don't know what's happened yet.

And she was just really scared that he was going to kill himself that night.

And we just-- we were just on pins and needles until he turned himself in.

>> NARRATOR: He turned himself in the next morning.

>> I went to the jail with my mom to visit Trevor.

It was just really sad to see him in the jail.

He was really scared.

He was 17 and he was in the adult jail.

>> NARRATOR: Trevor went to trial in June 1997.

He was charged as an adult with four crimes: reckless manslaughter, conspiracy to commit robbery, robbery and felony murder.

The most serious of the charges was felony murder.

>> I was still just so sure that people were going to understand that this was an accident.

I was just so sure that they were going to understand that.

>> NARRATOR: The jury did, in fact, understand and found Trevor guilty of reckless manslaughter.

Attorney Kathleen Byrne explains.

>> The jury thought that it was essentially a very bad accident.

That is what reckless manslaughter is.

>> NARRATOR: But the jury also found him guilty of robbery, which resulted in the charge of felony murder and the punishment of life without parole.

>> Felony murder is one form of first degree murder in Colorado.

There are various types of first degree murder.

The most common, or the most well known, is after deliberation and with intent to cause a death, you cause a death.

Felony murder is different in that it is what we call a strict liability crime.

So long as you have committed certain acts, it doesn't matter what your intent was.

In the case of felony murder, if you've committed, for example, the crime of robbery and during that robbery, or immediately thereafter, or while you're fleeing from the robbery, the death of a person is caused because of the defendant's conduct, because of the robbery.

It doesn't matter who causes that conduct, so long as it is caused in the context of that robbery or the flight from the robbery, then the defendant is responsible for that death.

>> NARRATOR: Kathleen Byrne is an independent appellate attorney who often works for the state.

She represented the state in Trevor's case, defending the conviction of felony murder in his appeal.

>> He committed the robbery, which is two to six years so far as I read the statute.

He committed conspiracy to commit robbery, which I think is one to three years, and he committed reckless manslaughter, which I think is two to six years.

A trial court could sentence them to run one after another, or all at the same time.

His sentence could have been between two and 15 years the way I calculate it.

But because of the felony murder rule, he was convicted of first degree murder, and that's a automatic life without parole.

>> You mean life without parole, instead of 12 to 15 years at the most that he could have gotten?

>> And that's very-- that is just the facts.

There is not a shred of opinion in there, that is the fact.

>> Do you have an opinion?

>> No, I have no opinion.

(laughs) It's a very harsh rule.

It's a very harsh rule.

And I think a lot of people question whether it's a appropriate rule to maintain.

It may be time for it to go.

>> NARRATOR: The felony murder statute has its roots in 12th century English law.

It was abolished in England 50 years ago, in part because of public outcry over the unfairness of the punishment.

>> The felony murder statute gets challenged all the time on the basis that it's unfair.

And every time that it comes up in the appellate courts of Colorado, it is upheld because it is not unconstitutional, and it is a matter for the General Assembly to change the law of felony murder.

The courts have no choice but to uphold it at this point.

>> NARRATOR: Nationwide, it is estimated that a quarter of the young offenders sentenced to life without parole have been convicted of felony murder.

It is a law that affects more juveniles than adults since juveniles tend to act in groups, and felony murder assigns the same culpability to everyone involved in the underlying felony, even if a murder is committed by only one of the group.

That's what happened in Colorado Springs in July 1999.

(gunshot) >> NARRATOR: No one knows for sure which of the three suspects killed Kristopher Lohrmeyer.

>> When officers arrived on the scene, they found one young male that had been shot in the back of the head.

>> Police suspect it was an attempted carjacking.

Lohrmeyer was just leaving work.

(sirens) >> NARRATOR: 17-year-old Kristopher Lohrmeyer was killed instantly.

>> Officers did a search of the area and did locate three juveniles who matched the description.

>> NARRATOR: Two of the three suspects confessed and made a deal for second degree murder in exchange for implicating the third one, Andrew Medina.

Medina was held in jail awaiting trial.

He was 15 at the time.

The main evidence against him was the word of his co-defendants.

>> He was such a little kid.

He was tiny physically.

He was 5'3", maybe 120, 125 at the time, and he was so young emotionally.

He's just a very young kid.

>> And it was so upsetting to Andy, who was sitting there, trying so hard to hold it together.

>> NARRATOR: Darren Cantor and Shawna Geiger were his attorneys.

>> Andy would call every day, and I would talk to him, just trying to keep him emotionally leveled out.

And so I remember him very much on an emotional level.

And he was really just one of the saddest, smallest, most pathetic children I've represented.

>> NARRATOR: Andy grew up with a dream of being somebody, but the reality was a learning disability, a difficult father, and an overwhelmed young mother.

>> Andy had a very poor family support.

He had a broken family, his father was an alcoholic and came to court a few times intoxicated and very abusive.

His mother had a very difficult time dealing with the proceedings and would sort of be in and out.

He was, in essence, abandoned throughout the course of the trial.

So now the post conviction lawyer's got to take it in, and I... >> NARRATOR: Geiger and Cantor were appointed by the court after Andy's original lawyer took a step that practically sealed his fate.

>> Once the mistake's made, we couldn't undo it.

That's the problem.

His first attorney had him write in essence a letter of apology, "I'm sorry for the death of your son."

That's basically what the letter said.

And she took that letter to the pastor and gave it to the pastor and said, "Do with this as you see fit."

He gave it to the family of the victim, and they gave it to the D.A.s, and it was used at trial as basically a confession.

>> NARRATOR: Tom Carberry was his appeal lawyer.

>> His original lawyer did the greatest disservice to a client I'd ever seen in my life.

She belonged to a church in Colorado Springs, and she found out the victim was a member of the same church, his family was a member of the same church.

And she got Andy to write a letter-- or really she wrote the letter and had Andy write it out longhand.

Basically it was a letter saying "I apologize, I'm so sorry."

It never admitted doing the crime, but it made it clear that he knew about the crime, was involved in the crime and that's enough for felony murder.

And it's insane.

You can't do that.

You're a defense attorney, you need to protect your client.

Andrew hadn't confessed, he had made no statement to the police.

He had a defense of saying, "I wasn't there."

And instead he got sent to prison for life.

>> Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be speaking at a memorial service for Kris Lohrmeyer at the age of 17.

>> NARRATOR: The victim, Kristopher Lohrmeyer, was deeply mourned by his family and his community, and no one found solace in Andy Medina's apology.

>> A senseless, stupid tragedy.

>> When you see the consequences of what these juveniles do, and you deal with it, then you understand.

When you sentence somebody to prison with life without parole, then that family knows where this person will be for the rest of their life.

They don't have to go t o repeated parole hearings, time after time, explaining to a parole board, and maybe a new parole board, what it meant to their family to lose their father, to lose their child.

>> The pain's always there, but you learn to live with it.

But it never goes away.

Ever.

You just don't get over it.

There's birthdays, there's holidays.

Matthew's favorite holiday was Christmas.

I missed out on graduations, weddings, babies.

All that Trevor took from me.

>> Oh, I'm very regretful of who I had become at that time.

A lot of shame, a lot of shame that that's who I was out there.

I don't have any good thoughts or good opinions about thinking back on who I was when I was 17.

>> We knew Trevor was going to do some time in prison.

Nobody ever said he was innocent, and 12 or 15 years seems much more appropriate than automatic life without parole.

Nobody even thinks of any mitigating circumstances.

Nobody even looks at the fact that he was 17, or that it was an accident.

>> NARRATOR: The victim's family never believed it was an accident.

>> An accident's an accident.

But it wasn't.

It was cold-blooded murder and I don't feel different.

I never will feel different.

>> NARRATOR: Trevor has been in prison for ten years.

>> I think we're just starting to get a picture of what an entire generation of young people experience when they're sentenced to life without parole.

We know what the families of the victims of their crimes feel, as well.

And so we can try and weigh the loss of families, which is quite horrible, against the level of punishment or the severity of the punishment of juveniles, and make a decision societally about whether we're achieving the goals of justice, retribution, or any other component of punishment, relative to what this punishment really is like when it's experienced.

>> You're put out in a box somewhere in the middle of nowhere and that's where they're going to keep you until your life is over.

Unfortunately my mind daydreams about what could be, and then obviously I have to come to that point where, hey you got to quit daydreaming or imagining those kinds of things because you are stuck in here, and it's going to be forever.

Sometimes the actual weight of it all really comes down on you, comes down on me and you, you know, get real upset about being stuck here forever.

>> It doesn't get less painful with time.

It gets worse.

Actually, because when you're 17-- I was 19-- you can't explain to people that age what they're-- what they're gambling with.

You can't explain to them what the rest of their life could be, and what it holds.

And so, as I grow up and see everything that he's missing and everything he can't do and everything I have to do without him, it's just-- it's just painful all the time.

>> NARRATOR: What Trevor did manage to do, with the financial help of family and friends, was to pursue his education.

>> Have you changed, do you think?

>> Oh, yeah, there's no continuity between the person I was and who I am today.

I mean, I was a kid when I got locked up and I've grown up.

I'm a Christian now.

That's been very influential.

And as a combination of those two, probably, I was able to really pursue a higher education.

That's done a lot to make me the person I am today.

>> NARRATOR: He is now studying for the ministry.

>> You know, I don't care if he finds a cure for cancer in there.

He should never get out of prison.

He killed somebody; he took a life.

It's so easy for these prisoners to say they find God in prison.

Go to county jail, you'll find God there also.

I'm not kidding.

They all come into court carrying a Bible.

No, he should have found it way before he pulled any trigger.

>> No forgiveness here?

>> None.

None.

There never will be.

There never will be.

>> NARRATOR: The emotions on the two sides could not be more passionate or more polarized.

>> The audacity of sending a child to prison for the rest of his life is so stunning to me.

The legislature has determined that adolescent brain development prohibits kids from being able to plan and focus and deliberate.

And so in the state of Colorado, it's illegal for a teenager to drive with another kid under 18 in the car with them.

At the same time, this same legislature has said these kids, with the same adolescent brains, can form the culpable mental state or the intent to commit murder and be locked up for the rest of their lives.

And so while Andy couldn't drive in a car with his two co-defendants, he can go to trial with his two co-defendants and face life in prison as an adult.

>> Andy understood it in such simple terms that it was more pathetic.

He understood that he was never going to eat McDonald's again, and he understood that he was never going to be able to play with his brother again.

He understood it in very basic, "These are the things as a kid that I am never going to do again."

>> NARRATOR: Sandra is Andy Medina's mother.

>> I was devastated, I was crushed.

There is no words.

I cried.

I mean, there is just no words to describe how I felt.

You know it totally changed my life.

I can only imagine, you know, what my son's went through.

I mean, he's told me things, but it's awful for me, you know, and my other son.

It's just awful, you know?

>> NARRATOR: Shawna and Darren had tried to prepare Sandra for what they feared was coming.

>> There came a point that Darren and I realized that we weren't going to probably be able to win this case.

At that point, I tried to work with his family on getting them ready for Andy to go to prison for the rest of his life.

I told his mother, "You'll be able to go "to the prison and hold him, and touch him, and spend time with him."

I tried to reassure them that they would have that kind of family visits.

>> NARRATOR: This was more or less true-- for one year.

And then Andy was transferred to Colorado State Penitentiary, the supermax.

Frontline was not given permission to interview Andy or any other inmates in the facility, nor were we permitted to shoot inside or outside the prison.

>> We'll start by saying that Colorado State Penitentiary is the maximum administrative segregation facility for the state of Colorado.

>> NARRATOR: This video was presented as evidence in a death penalty case.

>> We manage the 750-- 756 to be exact-- inmates that are deemed to be incorrigible, dangerous, violent, predatory.

>> It shocks me because I can't imagine this child having done anything that would put him in that position.

And what we've been told about why he's in CSP just never really fit for me.

It just didn't fit with the Andy I know.

>> NARRATOR: Andy has been in the supermax for almost five years.

The only interview with him was conducted in 2004 by Human Rights Watch.

He tried to explain that he'd been accused of being in a security threat group-- in other words, a gang.

>> They claim that he was in a gang and that he was somehow one of the leaders of a group that caused a riot or incited a riot at one of the facilities.

From what I know of Andy, from representing him, it's ludicrous.

I can't imagine that that's possibly true.

>> You have to remember when he got arrested he was a child.

I mean, you can't be a leader of a gang when you're 15 years old.

That's just not how it works.

And he has no tattoos, he has no symbols of gangs.

>> NARRATOR: When Andy first questioned the decision to transfer him to the supermax, he asked for a lawyer.

He was told that the hearing "does not permit participation of private counsel," and that the testimony is confidential and "shall not be revealed to the offender at any time."

>> They can say whatever they want, but it's just saying it.

There's just nothing to back it up.

They have no standards, there's no date of getting out.

>> Inmates are in charge of their own destiny here, because it's behavior driven and program compliant.

If his behavior doesn't... >> NARRATOR: This is a place where inmates, regardless of age, are locked up not for weeks or months, but mostly years.

Erik Jensen spent two and half years here; Jacob Ind, eight years.

>> They keep the inmates in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, 365 days a year, as I understand it.

>> It's intended to not be a comfortable place to do time.

This is where we house the most incorrigible inmates in the system.

>> It's a horrible environment, and you take a child and put him in that environment, I can't even imagine what it does to them.

>> CSP has total non-contact visits.

The regular booths utilize just a baffle system... >> NARRATOR: Sandra visits her son every week.

>> I can't hug him or give him a kiss on the cheek or buy him a pop or a snack or anything, no.

You know, he's alive, but it feels like he's not.

I don't know how to-- you know, it's awful.

You know, I cry when I go see him.

You know, when I go out I cry.

It's awful.

>> He's probably lost 20 pounds.

He has twitches in his body.

His whole body twitches.

His right arm twitches up and his elbow comes up.

It's-- you want to cry when you talk to him.

>> That is the worst place in the prison system to be because they don't care.

They don't care about your rights, about anything.

He will die in there, you know?

It's wrong, it's inhumane.

>> NARRATOR: According to the Colorado Department of Corrections, Andy has not made enough progress in the last four-and-half years to be released into the general prison population.

>> Legislatures which pass laws that give life without parole to teenagers typically don't care about rehabilitation of teenagers, don't care about giving teenagers any hope.

All they care about is locking up-- locking them up and throwing away the key, and those kids be damned.

>> We get vengeance, extreme vengeance, for kids who've committed serious crimes.

Vengeance is not justice; vengeance is vengeance.

>> NARRATOR: And yet, the United States is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which urges rehabilitation of young offenders and prohibits sentencing them to life without parole.

In 1992, the U.S. ratified it with a few reservations.

At the time of the ratification, the U.S. had about 400 inmates sentenced as juveniles to life without parole.

Today there are more than 2,000.

According to Human Rights Watch, in the rest of the world there are only 12.

>> There was a hearing in July of 2006 in Geneva, Switzerland, where the U.S. was called to testify before the Human Rights Committee, which is the body that enforces the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

And there the U.S. had to explain its behavior.

How is it that it can be party to this treaty and at the same time have 2,225 children serving life without the possibility of parole?

What the U.S. delegation told the human rights committee is that the child offenders that received this sentence were the worst of the worst.

And the reason the United States claims that these children are the worst of the worst is because it's trying to fit the practice to a reservation it placed on the treaty, which was that it would only treat children as adults in exceptional circumstances.

That this sentence was reserved only for the most hardened of criminals.

>> NARRATOR: Yet most of them are not hardened criminals.

>> We were, you know, normal teenagers who got put in a seriously bad situation, and we handled it about-- about as bad as you could handle it.

>> I just couldn't understand why nobody was looking at the fact it was an accident.

Why doesn't that matter?

It should matter whether or not he intended to kill someone.

It should matter that he was only 17.

>> I threw away my life.

I had no concept whatsoever, none.

There's no reason to live, that's the hardest thing.

I mean, you have to sit there and look forward to something.

>> In ten years I'll either be on the streets or dead, because I'm not going to keep doing this.

I'll be one or the other.

>> He's got to get out.

>> We will not accept anything else.

>> I'm going on ten now, as it is.

I'm not going to do another ten.

>> It's not possible.

(sobs) >> NARRATOR: Next time on Frontline: >> Everybody's phone records, everybody's e-mail... >> NARRATOR: In the war on terror... >> Everybody's a suspect.

>> NARRATOR: ...what's being threatened here at home?

>> It's the sort of thing that very oppressive governments would do without a warrant.

>> NARRATOR: Since 9/11, has the government's surveillance program gone too far?

>> I can give you more security, but I've got to take away some rights.

>> Next time, Frontline investigates "Spying on the Home Front."

>> To order Frontline's "When Kids Get Life" on DVD, call PBS Home Video at 1-800-Play-PBS.