Kids Are Different

Should Joseph Ligon spend the rest of his life in jail for a crime he committed at 15?

by Matt Stroud

Evan M. Lopez

[ the big house ]

Joseph Ligon is the longest-serving inmate in Pennsylvania's prison system. He's 73, and with the exception of one transfer for a court appearance in 1972, he's spent the last 57 years at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford, about 45 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. Ligon's case is so old that the state doesn't even host his docket sheet on its online Unified Judicial System.

According to a July 16 appeal filed to the Court of Common Pleas by Bradley Bridge of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, Ligon's story goes something like this: Ligon, then 15, and a group of young friends were hanging out in South Philadelphia in February 1953, and coerced an adult into buying them wine from a liquor store. They got drunk, and tried to rob people on the street. Two people were stabbed to death.

Police said Ligon eventually admitted that he was in the group of boys who had run amok in South Philly, and that he had stabbed one person in the chest. Ligon was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.

Unless state law changes, he'll spend the rest of his life locked up for a crime he committed at 15.

Ligon's case is representative of a debate playing out in states all over the country on the propriety of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. Here in Pennsylvania, state Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, D-Philadelphia, has proposed HB 1999, which would give juvenile offenders sentenced to life terms the opportunity to go before a parole board at age 31, and every three years thereafter. For Ligon, this would mean at least one last chance of freedom. He's not alone: Pennsylvania has more juvenile lifers than any other state in the country, about 450.

Bridge's appeal is based on the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in the Graham v. Florida case, which the Court handed down in May [Naked City, "Don't Throw Away the Key," Matt Stroud, June 1]. In Graham, the Supreme Court ruled that sentencing juveniles to life without parole for non-homicide crimes is unconstitutional.

But it didn't apply to Ligon, a convicted murderer. However, Bridge argues, "The Supreme Court underscored that in determining the constitutionality of a punishment, courts must 'look beyond historical conceptions' to the 'evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.' ... [T]he court relied on scientific and psychological studies distinguishing minors from adults to reach the conclusion that it was cruel and unusual to consider juveniles as morally culpable as adults convicted of the same crimes. ... Put simply, kids are different."

That thinking is consistent with the legislation Johnson proposed this spring.

"People need to serve time for their crimes," says Johnson, 36, who ran afoul of the law as a teenager and was sentenced to juvenile probation. "But people do change. ... When you commit a crime as a juvenile, you probably wouldn't make those same choices when you're an adult. I want to give people the chance to become better people and to be rewarded for that."

However, even advocates say the bill has little chance of becoming law.

Meanwhile, Joseph Ligon remains in prison. City Paper was unable to reach Ligon. However, one of his accomplices that long-ago winter day, James Tolbert, 73, retired and living in West Philadelphia, says the system is too strict.

According to court documents, four teenagers were convicted in those 1953 deaths, two of whom are now dead (one served time, was released and died on the outside; another died in prison). Tolbert is the lone free survivor. After his release in 1972 — like Ligon, Tolbert was convicted of murder and sentenced to life; unlike Ligon, his sentence was commuted — he took advantage of state re-acclimation programs and got into the meatpacking business. He's a widower now, and still on parole. Because the state forbids the two from communicating, Tolbert hasn't spoken to Ligon since the two were tried for murder.

"If you do something while you're young, you get a life sentence, that's it," he says. "The system sucks for young people. They think you're some kind of monster because you do something bad when you're a kid. But people do change. I know I've changed over all these years."

(editorial@citypaper.net)

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on HB 1999 on Wed., Aug. 4, beginning at 10 a.m., at Philadelphia's City Hall.