Children sentenced to die in prison!
I’m here today with a sensitive topic pertaining to juveniles sentenced to life in prison. These guys now are grown mature adults with the sensibility to be a man and a productive citizen today’s society giving the chance to do so. And 2012 The United States Supreme Court ruled in the Miller versus Alabama that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for children violated the United States constitution 8th amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling for states like North Carolina that imposed such sentences to hold sentencing and resentencing hearings. North Carolina General Assembly passed a law in July of 2012 that created an alternative to mandatory life without parole for children, essentially allowing for parole eligibility after serving 25 years, if a judge saw fit. Governor Roy Cooper passed an executive order on April 8, 2021, establishing the juvenile sentence review board to bring light to the 259 prisoners that were sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile. This order gives them the opportunity to file a petition with the review board. Unfortunately only 54 has submitted a petition, but at the same time I wonder how many of them are aware of this executive order, because if you don’t have the support system in society which I’m sure a lot of them don’t that kept up with the executive order being passed, the case managers more than likely are not doing their jobs by letting these individuals know or the opportunity, what is it they need to do and what it all entails. Advocates say, the review and clemency process lack transparency. There’s no way to judge whether the majority of people eligible to apply, 80% of them people of color, will receive relief. Out of the 259 prisoners sentenced to life as juveniles, only five have had their sentences commuted and this executive order expires December 31st, 2024, when Governor Roy Cooper’s term is over with.
* Note: as of June 2022, people of color made-up 80.8% of the 934 people in North Carolina prisons who were incarcerated for crimes committed while they were minors. Racial and ethnic minorities include 80% or slightly more of those in this group sentence to 30 years or more, life with parole or life without parole. *
To the hearts of those that care for human lives and justice in America, I beg you to look at the children in your lives that are under the age of 18 whether they’re your own child, niece, cousin, ETC and feel the compassion that you have in your heart for them and realize or imagine the mistakes that can be made at this young age within irrational misguidance whereas, developments in psychology and brain science continues to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. Understand the traumas they may have experienced as a child, the hardships they may have been living through, and their lack of insight into the life in front of them. We cannot just write them off and disregard them. They are human beings, and they deserve a second chance at life! This successor of Roy Cooper can keep the review board established, but with better transparency and aid and assistance for those that need help. The following letters are from Sandy Sturdivant (a letter to the victim’s family and one to his mother who stood by his side from day one that passed away five days after asking for forgiveness from the victim’s family. For she may forever rest in peace and watch over us all as her children and witness justice being served from the heavens above) And he himself a very wonderfully talented brother that I’m blessed to have met and can now say that good friend and a brother of mine was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 16. I have met many more as well that I consider to be brothers of mine (notably: Reggie Cannon who has also posted on BTWT) that was juvenile sentenced to life in prison during my time of incarceration and each one of them are a Sandy Sturdivant too and the serves their freedom.
*The next words are from Sany Sturdivant, he wanted to share his story with all of us*
Apology to the victim’s family
And our daily life in prison we are often lost in thought. We get lost in regret about the past and fears about the future. We get lost in our plans, our anger, and our anxiety. At such moments we cannot really be here for ourselves, we are not here for life.
I have been incarcerated for 25 years now, I believe that I was punished for my actions as a child, in prison for my troublesome behavior as a youth and sentenced to life in prison to cope with the decision I made to principate in a crime.
The aim and prayer of this text is to help restore meaning, purpose, values, awe and wonders to the writer’s life for redemption and out of respect for the victim’s family this attempt to apologize is intended to convert my words and feelings into hope, understanding, and forgiveness. I think about the problems that were caused by my adolescent decision, my sorry is my struggle in prison, my sorry is my pain and suffering. I sometime wish I could go back in time and never get into that car with my cousin and never witnessed a murder of another. How else can I see this, that my feelings aren’t caught up in my experience how else can I explain that I still cry as a grown man. My tears are for the thing I didn’t have courage to say the night my life changed.
Forgiving myself is a much harder process for me and as I walk through the steps, I know I was hurting inside and my actions towards others were sometimes harmful. I don’t have to live my hurt and pain anymore. Forgiveness is a journey with no quick fix. Because it hurts to secretly hope for what you know you cannot have and it’s hard to the pain when you hide it with a laugh. Is such a thin camouflage, like hiding a broken heart when you receive a life sentence. Like catching rain within your dreams that create storms. Meanwhile the desire to apologize is just too hard to express. As painful as it is to secretly hope is even more to ask for forgiveness. To reach the end of your sentence and still seek mercy for the loss of your hope for freedom you realize without it you can’t have a future you’re just a captain with no ship at sea in a dense fog. When it seemed as if a tangible darkness shut you in and the tense and anxiety gripping it way towards the shore of your mind waiting with beating heart for something to happen.
With all due respect, who among us knows what it’s like to become a memory? A ghost? An eternal moment of reflection, alive in a grave.
I remember my first day in prison, one of the hardest days of my life. NOTHING up to that point had prepared me for incarceration. I was less prepared for the thoughts of me dying in prison. All these years I’ve serve I had refused to allow my disappointment to dictate my ways and behavior. But to consider the seriousness of the consequences of my actions, made the inevitable feel like I had been hit in the head with a ton of bricks. I was no longer dismissing thoughts of what I have got myself into. Now there was a sense of dread of I didn’t want to die in prison.
The only thing I was living for now was staying one step ahead of giving up.
Over time I began to take a hard and honest look at my situation, my life and myself. Slowly I started to realize that life wasn’t over for me. In fact, life was just beginning again if I was willing to roll with making serious and necessary changes. I began to look at my imprisonment as a challenge.
Do I have what it takes for me to reinvent myself? To make something positive come out of this negative situation. Could I do away with my own self-destructive thinking and reckless behavior? Could I become a person that would garner respect among his peers and become a son that a mother could be proud of?
These are some of the questions that I asked myself, the challenges that I set for me. With time and a whole lot of determination I set down the path of change and with change came growth, with growth came a whole new outlook on life.
I continue to struggle to figure out how I am supposed to do this. How am I supposed to explain that I am not my crime? For so long I’ve been a victim of my own circumstance, instead embracing my mistakes and taking accountability of my action in the mess that I help create. It has been an uphill battle for me. Imagine trying to have a heart-to-heart conversation with the loved ones of the victim of a murder and trying to tell your side of the story while trying to ask for forgiveness. I recognize that the plea in my words may be extremely challenging.
At the core of hope is a leap of faith, not that it will all come out right, but that faith that holds that what do matters, how it will come to matter, and who it will come to inspire, and what positive effect it will have, is not for me to know.
But I want someone to have faith in me. I want to be where everyone else is, rather than where I am now. I do regret the past, but don’t want to shut the door to it. So, tell me what 16-year-old understood that whatever decision he or she makes today has a very likely hood to reflect their future, become the theme and subjection of maturity. I want to be forgiven for my sins as a child. I want to dedicate my life to making a change. I want to live in the future with a better tomorrow. I want to attempt to retake the lost dreams that were stolen from me. I just want to be free.
I do not want my words to be just words, I want them to be heard. I want you to feel deep down in your soul that I have learned a lesson that can’t be unlearned and that dying in prison is not my intention. It is only today, the now, I search for forgiveness within myself for all the troubles that I have caused. All the pain I’ve helped inflict; this I dearly understand. I know what landed me in prison. But I can’t allow it to define the rest of my life. Because I regained an appreciation for human life. Not just to be remorseful for the crime that led me to prison. But I am remorseful for all
the bad decisions I’ve ever made. Because I don’t want to wait for a final judgment, since I judge myself every day. I do not want to embrace any words that discourage me. Because life in prison was a few words that I heard that has come to invade my moment of purpose, the moment that I have lost the most, MY FREEDOM!
Never got the chance to say!
Dear Mom,
Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11 28-30)
This is very hard for me. To say goodbye to my first love, the first person who had embraced me with a kiss. I am lost in wonders at the miracle that became my mother. During my sorrows and conviction, I am at a loss for words, words I’ve never got the chance to say. I am only strong because you are my strength. My suffering is being confronted by your compassion to love me. I am humble because I have been raised by God’s most beautiful Angel.
I have never believed that you will live forever, I’ve never believed that I will be in prison when you pass away and go to Heaven. I grew up believing that you were a superhero with magical powers. I can’t imagine my life without you. Every heartbeat expresses my love for you. In love on every breath, beyond sculptures and symphonies, beyond great works and masterpieces is the greater, finer art of creating a conscious life. Genius appears everywhere but never so magnificently as in a life well lived.
There are so many thoughts that are running through my mind. There’s so much I want to say, and I want to begin by saying I am sorry. I am sorry for creating such a burden that was so overwhelming that it has been added to your stress and worries. I’m sorry that at the age of 16 I got myself into trouble that led me to prison and took me away from taking care of you. You are innocent of my wrong. You are innocent of the burden you were faced with from my mistake and mess I helped create. I’ve been watching over my shoulders and peeping around corners to look out for myself for so long that I almost didn’t notice that you are right here with me. I need your strength and your concern for me and my well-being. I have never pretended to be perfect. You have helped open my eyes to something about myself and how I handle things that I could stand to improve. The truth of the present moment can be painful. When I begin to examine the contrast of your love and compassion is day and night. My mother was truthful when lying was the common speech of men. She was honest when honesty was becoming a lost virtue. She was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one. She was steadfast when stability was unknown. Modest, fine, delicate, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was.
A rock of conviction, an unselfish person whose name has a place in the Sturdivant and Robinson Family history. The most innocent, the loveliest, the most adorable that age has produced. There are amazing things in life, and you were one of them. An amazing mother who stood with love and unity. A special flower. When I talk about my mother’s love and heart, I don’t mean the center of her emotions instead I mean the dreams she has for me, the wishes that is a part of what she imagined for me.
I grieve for the love of my life, my heartbeat as I weep, the greatest pain I’ve ever been through since I’ve been in prison is the death of you. Today I’m no longer the victim of circumstances. I am just a sad person who just lost his mother. My heart has been broken into a million pieces. I have gone throughout these weeks picking up the pieces to the puzzle of my life, trying to make them fit together, pieces of heartache, shame, fear, regrets, resentments, lack of forgiveness, lies, hate, anger, rage, addiction, disappointment, and sadness carrying the weight of losing the most important person of my life.
I’ll miss you, miss your smile and gentle touch, I will miss everything about you. I will miss you so much, especially your hugs and kisses. Did I ever tell you, mom, that I love you unconditionally? That same unconditional love you taught me. I love you more than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow. I am alone. I wish I could be your little boy again. That innocent spirit of joy that child was born of love. I wish I could stay your baby forever so you wouldn’t have to make that trip to heaven. But selfish of me for thinking such a thing. I don’t remember who said this, but there really are places in your heart you don’t even know exist that you can put that treasure of love in for someone that you unconditionally care for. So, I want to let gratitude be the pillow which I lay my night prayers to thank God for allowing me to be apart of Lea Sturdivant and let faith be the bridge I build to overcome my tears now that the love of my life is no longer here. So, I am singing Hallelujah in the middle of my storm. I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, it’s hard when you miss someone special. But you know if you miss them, therefore you had someone worth missing to miss someone is part of loving them.
My life has lost its significance, even if I’m released tomorrow, my future is to honor you for the rest of my days. I am now and forever a slave to making you proud.
Sandy Sturdivant to Lea Sturdivant
To whom it may concern,
If you are reading these words from Sany Sturdivant and believe in his right for a second chance. Please support him by writing to the address below and let the Governor know that you support Sandy’s change and request for him to be set free.
*Governor Roy Cooper
North Carolina Office of the Governor
4294 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4294*
