Warren Harris Jr. said he was sorry.
He sent his remorse to the families of the three men he robbed and fatally stabbed when he was 16 and high on heroin in New Orleans. Sitting at a table in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Harris, 63, spoke in a video conference about the guilt that gripped him as he served his life sentence in a prison known as ‘Angola, originally a slave plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River. With God’s help, he said, he reevaluated his life. Family members of his victims were not present at the April 17 hearing.
“I have a few nephews,” Harris said during the state parole board hearing. “I have one that I pray for constantly and I want to reach him before anything happens to him or before he ends up in prison. Not just him. Maybe some of his friends, you know.
This was an apology 47 years in the making. The murders occurred over an eight-week period, from February to April 1977. Fear spread in New Orleans that a serial killer was targeting homosexuals in the French Quarter, where mounted police patrolled around bars in striptease and jazz clubs in Bourbon. Street.
“It was a very horrible crime, but I think you did everything you could in Angola,” said parole board member Curtis “Pete” Fremin Jr., former director of probation and state parolees, which provided the crucial second. vote needed for Harris’ release.
Harris wiped his tears behind his glasses. He is now one of approximately 121 “juvenile lifers” to have been released via a parole hearing or a negotiated resolution with prosecutors since a 2017 Louisiana law made them eligible after serving 25 years. according to the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights.
Under the law, juvenile lifers sentenced to life and eligible for parole must also obtain a GED, go one year without a major disciplinary review and meet other requirements.
“A punishment for condemning a child to die in prison”
Harris’ release was triggered by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
In 2012, in the case of Miller v. Alabama’s high court ruled that life sentences for juvenile offenders without the possibility of parole violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court relied on research that showed that young people are scientifically different from adults, that their brains and self-control are not fully developed. In Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016, the Supreme Court made the Miller decision retroactive.
After the Montgomery decision in 2016, some 297 Louisiana prisoners were eligible for resentencing, according to Hannah Van De Car, deputy legal director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights. Around 150 of them are still incarcerated. At least 18 of the 297 people died behind bars before their hearing, Van De Car said.
Van De Car said there is no official count of cases involving juveniles serving life sentences.
“Maybe it’s better than an estimate.” Not as good as perfect,” she said of the center’s case count. “In Louisiana, we’re the only ones tracking this…so I don’t know if we’re detecting every case. I really hope. But it’s really hard to know.
The United States is the only country that imposes life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes committed before the age of 18, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that studies inequities in the criminal justice system .
Despite this distinction, the United States has seen a reevaluation of incarceration standards in recent years, with efforts to promote rehabilitation and reduce excessive sentences – particularly involving youth in the criminal justice system .
Since Miller in 2012, 28 states and the District of Columbia have banned life sentences without the possibility of parole for people under 18, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In the United States, 488 people are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were children – including people awaiting resentencing and new cases since the Miller decision, the Campaign said for a fair sentencing of young people in figures updated at the end of February. Nearly 1,100 people sentenced to life without parole as children have been released since 2016, the group said.
“We don’t need to maintain a sentence to sentence a child to die in prison,” Van De Car said. “If what we know is that the vast, vast majority will grow up. They will have their opportunity. Their brain development will occur. A change in behavior will occur. The rehabilitation will take place.
“I robbed and killed these men”
Harris was a teenager when police arrested him in a motel room after receiving a tip from an informant. He was indicted on four counts of first-degree murder in 1977, according to a 1980 appeal summary of his eventual conviction on three of the counts.
The victims lived alone within a seven or eight block radius of the French Quarter. Harris met them on the bus or in the street. His victims were Jack Savell, Alden Delano and Ernest Pommier, according to news agency reports at the time. He was acquitted of the murder of a man named Robert Gary.
The state Supreme Court upheld the conviction, ruling in part that Harris’ confession, which he said was made under duress after police officers threatened him, was “made freely and voluntarily.” according to the call summary. Harris was sentenced in November 1977 to three consecutive life sentences.
At the April parole hearing, board member Steve Prator, a former Shreveport police officer and Caddo Parish sheriff, told Harris that his crimes were “almost like those of a killer serial”.
“Given my background, this is what it looks like. So, what was this serial killer’s modus operandi? Prator asked before voting to keep Harris in prison.
“I needed money to finance this medicine. The drugs I was doing at the time,” Harris said, a sheaf of papers on a table in front of him. “I associated with some victims and was asked to accompany them to their homes. And the moment we entered the house, I robbed and killed these men. And I regret it… I am truly sorry every day.
Parole Board member Jerrie LeDoux, who voted in favor of parole, told Harris that before making a decision, she often asked herself, “Would I be afraid to live next to this person ?
“I believe you are ready to take to the streets,” she said.
At one point she asked, “I want to hear your own words, Mr. Harris, why should we consider letting you out?” »
“I rehabilitated myself. God allowed me to re-evaluate my life and get on a positive path,” Harris said.
He said he “stopped being around negative people” in prison.
“We should not be an exception on this”
In Angola, Harris became a prison administrator – inmates charged with certain jobs and responsibilities – and has not faced any disciplinary action since 2017. He learned landscaping and other trades, earned his GED on his sixth attempt and took classes on substance abuse. He is a member of a gospel group as well as the singing group “Pure Heart Messengers,” according to his testimony at the parole hearing.
In a 2008 research interview for the documentary “Follow Me Down: Portraits of Louisiana Prison Musicians,” Harris told director Benjamin Harbert, chair of the performing arts department at Georgetown University, that music gave him a inner freedom.
“To me, music is like reading a western and enjoying that western. It’s like you’re this individual…crossing the plain or you’re in the saloon or whatever,” he told the director.
One day, Harris recalled, a performance of “Jesus, I Love Calling Your Name” on a gospel radio station moved him.
“She was singing this song. An open valve. It was a new experience for me. I’m crying real tears,” he said of gospel singer Shirley Ceasar. “It’s something that really touched me. The gospel has become something that I live by now.
At his parole hearing, Harris said he was “a waiter who gives my time and the very few resources I have to help those who cannot help themselves.”
Kerry Myers, deputy director of the Louisiana Parole Project, told the parole board that Harris had a support system. The nonprofit will “essentially help detox from the institutionalization” that Harris endured for decades.
“You can’t minimize any of the actions. They’ve been horrible, but all that ability to grow and mature is why we’re here today,” Myers said.
Harris’ lawyer, Abigail Floresca, described how he channeled his remorse and dealt with the harm he caused. Even children who commit heinous crimes, she says, are capable of change.
“Sixteen-year-old Warren was sitting in his grandfather’s church, dozing off, high on heroin,” Floresca said. “Mr. Harris, 63, has earned 41 Bible studies certificates. Sixteen-year-old Warren took the lives of several men. Mr Harris, 63, cares for the elderly and sick at a hospice.
After his release, Harris will stay with his 60-year-old sister, Brenda Palmer, who also made an emotional appeal to the parole board.
“I was pregnant at 14. I was a grandmother at 40 and over the years we all changed our lives,” Palmer said. “I’ve watched Warren grow over the years. We were all in prison…with Warren.
She added: “Warren has been like a father, an uncle to my children, my grandchildren, and we rely on each other. When I go to visit him, I’m not just going to visit him. I’m going there because I need him. He has been a great support to me…I am here to be there for him until the day God calls us all home.
Harris took off his glasses and wiped away his tears.
Van De Car, of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, said: “One of the most important things I spend a lot of time thinking about is that we’re only talking about children…It’s a bit of a cliché at this point , but all of us can look back on who you were at 15, 16, or 17 and recognize that that’s not who we are today. You know, we should not be an exception in this area around the world. We simply shouldn’t do it.
CNN’s Alisha Ebrahimji and Ariane of Vogue contributed to this report.
For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com
yahoo
