Bryan Stevenson

And if our laws and our policies don't reflect the fact that she is more than that moment of

of violence, that moment of reaction, then we're going to do something unjust.

We're going to put her in prison for life without parole.

We may even sentence her to death.

We have reduced her to this worse act.

I've never represented anybody who was only the crime they've committed.

And that's the difficulty of not being more explicit about this concept that we are all more than the worst thing we've ever done.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I think what's been very gratifying about my work is that I see that play out every day in the clients that I represent.

I represent a lot of children.

And when you are 13 or 14 and you end up being sentenced to life in prison in an adult facility, there's a presumption that you must be awful and irredeemable.

And I just think that's a mistake.

I think what distinguishes children from adults is that they're in a constant state of change.

They are not who they are going to be.

In a decade, physically, emotionally, psychologically, biologically, we change as we go through adolescence.

And in many states, we don't permit that change to take place.

We have 13 states in the United States that have no minimum age for trying a child as an adult.

So I represent eight and nine-year-old kids sometimes who are facing 50- and 60-year prison sentences.

Eight and nine-year-old children.