Summary of Phillip Vance Smith II’s article, “In North Carolina, Juvenile Lifers See a Pathway to Freedom.”
Some were barely teenagers when they were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars. Many endured poverty, trauma, and abuse before ever entering a courtroom. Now grown adults — some with decades behind them, others still in limbo — these individuals represent a crisis of conscience in North Carolina’s criminal legal system.
A powerful new article explores the stories of people like Joseph “Baby J” Jones, Sethy Seam, April Barber Scales, and Jhalmar “Dreamer” Medina — all sentenced to life or extreme terms as children, many of them Black, brown, or poor. While former Governor Roy Cooper created a path to clemency for some, many petitions remain unanswered as a new administration decides whether to continue that work.