My only son, Steven Menendez, was 14 years old when he was arrested. It was his first arrest. He was not accused of being the shooter. For years while enduring the long court process, I believed that justice would prevail. But, on the day of Steven’s sentencing, I fainted on the floor outside the courtroom. My only son had just been sentenced to 50 years to Life.
Of course, I knew that under California law the verdict was the best the judge could give, short of refusing to uphold the state law. But, that’s what I was still hoping for – that the judge would do what was right, what was moral, what was in line with the human rights standards outlined in international law – rather than follow the cruel and unusual practice of the United States to sentence children to die in prison.
Moments earlier, while I waited to read my statement to the judge, I remember how my heart went out to the family of Danny Savedra. I still can not imagine the grief that they were feeling having buried a son. And I know how badly my son, Steven Menendez, feels about their loss, because he speaks of it often.
I also felt for Steven’s co-defendant – Jose Garcia – also not the shooter. At 16 when arrested, Jose was facing Life Without the Possibility of Parole. The thought that a 16-year-old could spend the rest of his life in prison was overwhelming.
But, as I sat in court, I still do not have words for the grief I was personally feeling. While my son is alive, those three years I went back and forth to court and visited him in juvenile hall, and the two years since that I have visited him in state prison, I have felt as though my son, also, is gone. The idea that he will spend 50 years or more in jail seems to me exactly like a death sentence. Some days, I have thought that death might actually be less painful. A piece of me dies every day I leave after a visit, every year that a birthday passes, every moment that I imagine visiting my son in a cage for the rest of my life.
When Steven was first arrested, his charges enabled the District Attorney to direct file his case into adult court without any judicial review in juvenile court. His adult court transfer also meant that he was detained at “the compound” – a baby-maximum security prison with 200 cells on the inner grounds of Sylmar (Barry J. Nidorf) Juvenile Hall. (Sylmar is one of three juvenile halls in L.A. County – the largest juvenile hall system in the world with 2,000 total beds.)
To enter the compound, you pass through the high cinderblock walls and razor wire of the juvenile hall to a second internal prison surrounded by security gates so high they seem to touch the sky also topped off with razor wire. At the time, the boys at the compound were on 23 ½ hour lock-down. The County Probation Department had determined that because of their transfer into adult court, these boys also could not go to school, could not get time outside, could not get recreation, could not even eat outside their cells. By the third month, my son who was already small, had lost nearly 30 pounds. I saw the same weight loss in the other boys. I knew of one boy who fainted. As parents, we smuggled food into visiting in our pockets and underwear. By month four, without any sun, my son had turned a shade of pale, sickly gray. I could tell he was severely depressed, although he never complained for fear I would worry.
Together as parents we joined the Youth Justice Coalition and fought for our sons’ rights to school, recreation and adequate food portions. Since then, the youth transferred to adult court leave their cells each day for a classroom education, fell the sun on their face every day, get time on the yard and eat together on their dorm.
That fight brought us together and gave us the strength and support we would all need to endure the long court process and extreme sentences that we would face in the future. One by one, we fought each case. We packed each court date. We organized press conferences and rallies. We helped to build the defense strategy, brought in our own expert witnesses – especially gang experts other than law enforcement – and prepped witnesses. We flooded the court with letters, mobilized the media and testified during sentencing, reducing LWOPs to Life and extreme Life sentences to the lest amount of time possible under the law. We got better at providing court support and court monitoring, and eventually got one acquittal and two hung juries. We participated actively from the beginning on the statewide work group working to change the law in California to give youth serving Life Without Parole an opportunity for re-sentencing.
Most important, we came to care for each other and each other’s children as our closest relations – building a new family bound together by a mixture of hope and grief. As months passed to years most of our blood relations grew tired. They couldn’t understand our pain. Their lives moved forward while ours stood still.
I have come to realize that trials are a competition between lawyers. They are about seeing everything in black and white, good and evil. They do not recognize the shadows where life is lived. In Steven’s case, court isn’t where you’ll hear that this was Steven’s first arrest. Court isn’t the place where you learn that his 13th year of life – just before the shooting – he learned that his father committed suicide when he was an infant, or that his maternal grandfather, the most important man in his life, died, or that we moved and he was struggling to find himself in a new community and school, and that in the midst of all of this he visited his father’s family and was introduced to the streets of South Central Los Angeles for the first time. Court isn’t where you’ll learn that he was not a “hard-core gang member,” but a naïve and confused kid searching for acceptance in the wrong places. Court isn’t where you’ll hear that he gave shower shoes and a pillow to another youth new to juvenile hall who was particularly sad. Court isn’t where you’ll hear from his writing teacher in jail that asked him what kind of snack he wanted, and was surprised when he said “no snack” unless she “could bring a snack for everyone.” Court isn’t the place where you can hear the selfless conversations that Steven has with all of us in his family, where he urges us to forget about him, and learn to live without him. “Mom,” he says, “take care, go on with your life, go to Disneyland, you did nothing wrong.” “Dad,” he says to his stepfather, “don’t work too hard. I worry that you work as much overtime as possible to pay for the bills, the phone calls from prison.”
The law says my son is not repairable, but I have already witnessed the good man he is becoming. This is happening despite the cold, violence and abuse he has seen every day in juvenile hall, the state’s youth prison (Division of Juvenile Justice) and now state prison. Imagine what he could accomplish – and what all the other youth serving Life sentences in California and the nation could accomplish – if they were given the opportunity with a second chance.
This experience has taught me a lot about justice.
I can tell you what justice looks like to a parent. I used to trust the justice system to dig for the truth, to stand by communities, to heal the hurt and violence. Now I see that neither the youth buried in the ground nor those buried in prison see justice. And, I see that – whether at the jail site or the grave site – a mother’s tears go unrecognized.
As I have already said, Steven is my only son. I will never share a view of the sky with him. I will never see him walk in his high school or college graduation. I will never witness his wedding or rock his child in my arms. There are tens of thousands of mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles just like me. In our rush to incarcerate our way out of every problem, we have sacrificed generations of children.
Some, like Danny, are dying in the streets. Some, like Steven and Jose, are sentenced to die in prison. When my child’s future is buried – or that of the family you sit next to in church, or pass in the market or bump into on the street – then all L.A.’s and California’s and America’s future is buried.
Over these last few years, I supported youth from the Youth Justice Coalition – all of whom have experienced the juvenile system – to march 50 miles across L.A. County. They have demanded that L.A. support a future for young people beyond death in the streets or a lifetime behind bars. One of their chants stays with me – “When will we finally decide, that locking up our youth for life is genocide?”