People

This post was written by Justeen . Justeen is currently 34 years old and has been in prison for 16 years. In this post, she explains the changes she’s undergone, the skills she’s acquired, and why she feels she’s ready to have a chance in society. If only Nebraska’s laws gave her and others like her that chance…

Hello again. I’ve decided to give you a synopsis of just what I meant when I said that I have been rehabilitated and have grown from a youth to a woman with credentials which could most definitely prove my ability to be a functional citizen in the place called society, that I left before I even had a clear understanding of what living was, especially in a model manner.

In 1994 I received my GED. I have even completed classes from the South East Community College where I have credits in Business, Math, Spelling, Keyboarding, and Algebra I. I attended and completed these classes, but later the college pulled out of the institutions. There were other classes I took but due to the fact that they pulled out, I did not have the chance to fully complete them.

I have numerous job skills:

1. Cook – I have made meals for the total population. In doing that I earned a food service certification. I feel that I am the master here as far as creating salads and a lot of different in dishes in quantities of 300 or more servings.
2. CSI (Cornhusker State Industries) Sewing Factory – My job here consisted of being a Seamstress (making shirts, jeans, pants, towels, washcloths, bags, sheets, pillowcases, and blankets), a Cutter  (keeping track of all patterns, yardage, materials, and laying out all orders). I’ve learned to use a Big Cutter (Blue Streak), a hand cutter, and a table cutter. I was also a Mechanic. I fixed all machines in the factory. I took mechanic classes with professional machine mechanics from the outside. I learned how to change blades, needles, to adjust speed on the machines, how to replace broken parts, including the motor. I also learned how to time all machines. I also worked in “Quality Control.” I checked all shirts, pants, sheets, jeans, towels, bags, blankets, any and all items made in the factory from CSI, fixed all mistakes, boxed all orders, and signed off on them when they were ready to go.

I’ve taken numerous self help classes and participated in activities. They include: Cognitive Self Change; Oasis- Restorative Justice; Drawing; Reading & Writing Group; Scrapbooking; Crocheting; Painting; Quilling; Singing in the Choir; Volleyball (I got many certificates for this); Tennis; Softball; Kickball; Soccer; Yoga; and Making and Creating Greeting Cards, which is how I spend my time today.

A very important class for me was Healthy Eating. This was due to the eating disorder I developed as a young teenager coming into a place where I became depressed. I had a low self-image, low self esteem from guilt, pain, shame. I used to feel that I should have been the person that died, but through prison fellowship, Bible Studies, prayers, counselors and my family, along with other people that came in and out of my life, told me and helped me realize that I do matter and God has plans for my life and life is worth living. May God be given the Glory; I no longer fight this battle.

Yes, I’ve grown up. I am an adult now. There is not need for the taxpayers to continue to pay to warehouse the woman I’ve become today. I assure you I will make a productive, law-abiding citizen, if given the chance.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Justeen

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This post was written by Justeen. Justeen is currently serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for an offense committed in her youth.

As I submit this public plea, I ask for compassion and understanding as I explain my silent pain, from a tragedy that occurred from a mind of a teenager, that was not only morally incorrect but even worse, a mind that was too underdeveloped to even understand the depth of pain and loss that this unthinkable turn of events would cause the victim, the victim’s family, taxpayers, society and last but not least myself and my dreams and my family.  I am 34 years old now.

Growing up as a child, you think as a child.  No matter a child with the most pleasant upbringing or a child that may have been deprived, at the end of the day, scientifically the development of the brain is still the same, unless of course if there was trauma or some sort of birth defect.

I’ve been incarcerated half of my life based on a crime committed as a child.

Let me say this, there aren’t too many days that have passed since that act of violence that I don’t remember the young lady and her child that was taken so young, away from her mother.

There aren’t too many days that I wonder that if I knew then what I know now – Oh, the pain is deep.

Incarceration isn’t the most hurting part, the pain of the incident is most traumatizing for me.

So many nights, I wonder if my life has to end based on a decision that I made as a child.

I know the victim of the crimes life was cut short and it’s a tragedy that I feel compelled to express.

I was the one who ended up still with life in my body and it’s a life under the operation of an adult and most of all a rehabilitated mind.

Isn’t that what the prison system is for?  Isn’t that what taxpayers are paying for, rehabilitation?

Now I understand when an adult makes a decision that he must live with it as an adult.

My concern is, how much of my debt is paid, who can put a price on the tag for me?

I have sat in prison for 16 years and I’ve watched adults make terrible decisions and get paroled, and I’ve seen the media make exceptions and different guidelines for teens.  Where do I fit?

If rehabilitation is the price, then yes, I’ve paid in full.

But if punishment is the price when is the debt paid or what is the payment for a woman who committed a terrible act as a child.

Please help me understand, help me keep hope alive because I’ve done all of the rehabilitation required here.  I would love to have a chance in society operating under an adult, rehabilitated mind.

With most sincerity,
Justeen

This post was written by Mark Rathjen. Mark’s wife Justeen is currently serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for an offense she committed as a youth.

My name is Mark Rathjen and in 2004, through a friend, I had the opportunity to meet and get to know Justeen, an inmate at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women. My first meeting with her was apprehensive, but a beautiful young lady who was full of life and all smiles greeted me. She had a wonderful sense of humor and by the end of our first visit I knew I’d be coming back.

With each visit I learned a little more about her and her life. She was a juvenile offender convicted of murder and given a life sentence without parole. One bad decision on one bad day was going to dictate the rest of her life. As I got to know her I sensed her remorse as she opened up to me little by little, especially when it got close to the date of her crime. That was always, and still is, very hard for her. I also found a women so full of love, energy and with a positive attitude that it astounded me. How could someone facing such a bleak outlook be as nice and outgoing as she was? She had no bitterness for doing her time, only at the sentence she was given.

I learned that she loved children and whenever one was present during visiting she would light up and pay loving attention to each and every one. She loves sports and takes great pride in how she looks. She is a very hard worker who always tries to do her very best and expects nothing short of excellence in what she does as well as from those around her. She has taken every opportunity to better herself and to educate herself and she is very intelligent, and if there is something she doesn’t know but is interested in, she always asks for more information so that she can learn.

She is very giving of herself and what she has and if someone is in need or less fortunate than herself, she is always the first to give. She is very sympathetic to those who are ill or who are just having a rough time, and is always first to lend a helping hand. She is definitely a Lady.

The more I saw and learned of her, the deeper my feelings became. She went from being a stranger, to a friend, and slowly but surely she began to find a place in my heart. I knew it was a possibility that she and I would never be given the chance to live as a normal man and wife and it took me quite a while to be sure that this is what I truly wanted.

I told her of my feelings and after a year of her searching her feelings we were married on July 2, 2008. It was, and always will be, the happiest day of my life.

I was given the chance to meet and to know her as she is today, as an adult woman and not the teenager she was when she committed her crime. She’s been told that because of that one act as a juvenile she is no longer worthy to be seen or evaluated by the parole board and judged on whom she has grown and evolved into. I, from my own past, know that who I was as a teenager is not who I am today. I doubt anyone can honestly say that they were mature and set in their ways at 14 to 18 years old.

I am very much in Love with Justeen and know I made the right choice to stand by her and accept her for who she is now. The world is depriving itself of a hard working, caring, loving person with a passion for life, learning and helping others. She is a beautiful soul and needs only the chance to prove herself.

I will stand by her as any man would do for his wife and only hope that someday the State of Nebraska will see that all juveniles have the capacity to grow and change and be productive members of society.

Now 54, Luigi has been incarcerated since he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole at age 15. His 39 years served make him the third longest serving lifer in the Nebraska prison system. His case highlights the fact that the use of life without the possibility of parole sentences in the cases of youth means that those offenders who are the youngest and least capable of good decision making are treated the most harshly of all lifers – by the end of their lives they will have served more years than those who were older and thus more culpable.

Luigi was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for killing a 49-year-old woman. He attempted to take the woman’s purse and in the ensuing struggle fatally shot her.

Luigi agreed to plead guilty to first degree murder under the condition that the County Attorney recommend he be sentenced to life without parole – as opposed to the death penalty which could still be applied to juveniles at the time Luigi was sentenced.¹ (Nebraska prohibited sentencing youth under 18 to death in 1982², it was prohibited nationally by a 2005 Supreme Court decision).

Luigi has now spent almost 3/4ths of his life in prison. At 53, is he the same person as the youth we sent into prison at age 15? Are we so certain of the impossibility of growth and change in youth such as Luigi that we want to continue our policy of refusing to even revisit their cases decades down the line?

To help illustrate the distance that separates a 15-year-old from a 53-year-old, we present below two letters written by Luigi. One is an appeal Luigi filed as a 16-year-old. In the handwriting of a child, it shows the confusion and fear of a youth entering into the adult system. The next letter was written 37 years later. It was submitted by Luigi to the Judiciary Committee of the Nebraska Legislature as they considered a bill that would end the practice of sentencing youth to life without the possibility of parole in Nebraska in 2008. It shows a man who has experienced deep remorse and changes as he has struggled to come to terms with the pain he has caused to his victim’s family and his own.

Luigi’s appeal, submitted in 1971 when he was 16-years-old:

Luigi’s 2008 letter to Brad Ashford, Chairperson of the Judiciary Committee of the Nebraska Legislature:

I committed first degree murder when I was 15 years old, that was almost 38 years ago. Only two months prior to committing my crime, I was a 14 year old boy graduating from junior high school and looking forward to enjoying my summer vacation with the other boys in my neighborhood.

What I did that summer day of July 17, 1970, was indeed a terrible act on my part. I assure you that I did not wake up that morning thinking about taking another human’s life, but I did. I have relived that moment every day since then, and that sentence, of living with my actions, will indeed be a life sentence no matter the outcome of [Legislative Bill 843].

What I would like to say is that I am heartfelt remorseful for my actions and their effects to my victim’s family. I would like a chance to display my atonement by being a useful and lawabiding member of society one day. I believe that if I could have an opportunity to tell other junior high students my story and the consequences of my actions which have placed me in prison for the majority of my life, I could perhaps pursuade some of them not to listen to people who are trying to influence them to do illegal things like I did and therefor prevent them from harming an innocent person like I did and ruining their lives and bring heartache to their families.”

I am not asking that anybody put aside or subtract from what I did. I am asking only that there be notice given that I was a young boy and influenced by others at the time of my crime, and I am asking for an opportunity to make up for that terrible day by becoming a part of society where I can be productive and an example for others to learn from. Perhaps in that way some other young teenager will not ruin the lives of some innocent person or the lives of those he loves. I feel that at this time I am providing no useful purpose in life. I would like to become a tax payer instead of a tax liability.

I realize that I not only brought a great amount of grief upon my victim’s family, but I also brought a great amount of grief upon my own family as well. I want to hold my grandmother in my arms before she dies. I have two brothers and four sisters and many nieces and nephews that I would like to reconnect with. I have lost family members since I have been incarcerated. I lost one of my brothers in a drive by shooting so I have also felt the great pain caused from losing a loved one to a senseless act.

1. Information from the transcript of Luigi’s arraignment, from December 31st, 1970.
2. Omaha World-Herald, “High Court Narrows Executions,” 3/2/05.