‘Juvenile lifers’ file lawsuit against state parole board

The 17-year-old convicted of a notorious Christmas 1990 killing during a showing of “The Godfather” at a Valley Stream movie theater filed a federal class action suit Tuesday against the state parole board for alleged unconstitutional handling of applications from juvenile criminals.

Lawrence Bartley, now 45, earned a master’s degree, raised $8,000 for a gun buyback program, and won support from both guards and Sing Sing’s superintendent for his rehabilitation efforts during 27 years in prison, but was denied parole last fall because it would “deprecate the serious nature of the crime,” the lawsuit says.

Lawyers for Bartley in the Manhattan federal court suit say New York’s parole board violates the rights of 630 so-called “juvenile lifers” — youths sentenced to a minimum number of years up to life — by unconstitutionally ignoring their prison records and looking only to their past conduct.

“No one is coming from the position that murder is anything but a tragedy and a deep moral wrong,” said Issa Kohler-Hausmann, one of the lawyers. “The claim here is the Supreme Court has found murderers are capable of rehabilitation, especially kids. They are capable of change and they deserve some chance to prove that.”

Bartley, of Laurelton, was convicted in 1992 of second-degree murder for the shootout between two feuding groups at a Nassau County theater that left a bystander dead and three others wounded, and was sentenced to 27-1/3 years to life. He became eligible for parole last year because of prison credits.

A second named plaintiff in the case, Carlos Flores, now 54, was convicted of second-degree murder for participating in a 1981 bar robbery in which an off-duty cop was killed. Flores, then 17, got 21 years to life and has been denied parole 10 times despite a spotless disciplinary record for 25 years, the suit said.

Neither man is challenging his conviction, the lawsuit said, but based on maturity differences between adults and juveniles, the Supreme Court has barred life without parole for juveniles as “cruel and unusual punishment,” except for rare crimes that reflect “irreparable corruption.”

While young offenders theoretically become eligible for parole in New York after their minimum sentence is served, the lawsuit said the parole board’s practices effectively undercut their chances by looking back to the original crime and disregarding an inmate’s prison record.

“The U.S. Constitution prohibits statutory schemes that fail to provide juvenile lifers with a meaningful and realistic opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation,” the lawsuit claims.

Both Flores and Bartley, the lawsuit said, were denied parole despite scoring as low risks for reoffending on internal ranking systems of the state’s Department of Corrections and Community Services, the lawsuit said.

In Bartley’s case, the parole board denied him release while finding that his record “exemplifies an extraordinary effort to give back, demonstrates restoration and evidenced change,” the suit said.

The lawsuit said 630 individuals are serving up-to-life sentences in New York for crimes committed between the ages of 13 and 17. Fourteen state parole board commissioners are named as defendants. A spokesman for the state did not return a call for comment.