|
 E-mail Story Print Friendly
Opinion editorials Handling of Pit Appeal Calls for a Time-Out |
Front Page 
opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Nothing Magic About Killer's 21st Birthday
Hard cases, they say, make bad law, but one of the hardest cases juvenile parole officials have seen should be the impetus for improving the law.
Mister Saunders went into the juvenile corrections system after committing, at the age of 13, a particularly grisly murder-rape. He walked out a week ago after turning 21, freed from the jurisdiction of the Children, Youth and Families Department by the calendar. The calendar worked against his accomplice, who, two years older than Saunders, was sentenced to 45 years after being tried as an adult.
Saunders' time at the Youth Diagnostic and Development Center was called productive by CYFD spokeswoman Romaine Serna.
"He graduated from high school, participated in treatment, and those are all positive indicators."
The negative, pre-incarceration side of the ledger: Saunders was arrested on suspicion of assault in August and again in September 2001 in Phoenix before his family moved to Albuquerque. Over New Year's holiday 2002 he burglarized the apartment of Melissa Albert, his neighbor, while she was on vacation. Then, as the frightened 34-year-old Laguna Pueblo woman was moving out of a place where she no longer felt safe, he proved her instincts right. While the 15-year-old held her arms, Saunders stabbed her in the neck 13 times. While she was dying from those wounds, he raped her twice.
An adult guilty of that would be put away for half a lifetime. Mister Saunders had seven years to try to rehabilitate himself, then whether he had succeeded or not walk unsupervised into a world he hasn't known since he was 13, a world he didn't know how to live in then, a world he's bound to have trouble adjusting to now.
Some discretion should be dialed into cases like this to impose intensive supervision backed by the threat of adult incarceration. There should be the option of halfway houses, a full-court counseling press and whatever else it takes to maximize the chances for a successful transition and minimize the danger to the next trusting, defenseless neighbor.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
