Bryan Stevenson’s best-selling book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” posits that within America’s juvenile and adult criminal courts, mercy and justice are forever locked in opposition.

Or as William W. Berry described it in his analysis of “Just Mercy” for the Texas Law Review: “Two pillars of a zero-sum game.”

Berry, an associate professor of law at the University of Mississippi, continued, saying: “… the conservative view often favors a punishment that achieves ‘justice,’ while the liberal view often favors a punishment that offers ‘mercy,’ such that to require justice denies mercy and to give mercy undermines justice.”

Why Cameron Pryor remained free before fateful Kroger carjacking

In other words, an either/or proposition.

And while neither the professor nor the author of “Just Mercy” was specifically referring to the workings of Shelby County Juvenile Court, they could have been.

A widening divide

There are contrasting viewpoints about what in the juvenile court system works, what doesn’t, who is harmed, what might be done about it and who should be overseeing any changes or reforms.

Broad disagreement about the machinations of juvenile court is nothing new, of course.

But the schism may be growing.

Last month, a citizen shot and killed a 16-year-old who was part of a carjacking attempt on a Monday afternoon at a Kroger gas station in East Memphis. The teenager, Cameron Pryor, had multiple previous offenses but had not been detained by juvenile court.

Since then, dissenting voices have grown louder. But the voices also are careful to couch their comments. So, while Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich was quick to say a better method for immediate intervention was needed for juveniles, she also says this:

“I’m not advocating every youth we’re in contact with get locked up. That’s the last thing I’m advocating.”

The voices are armed with statistics, too. Weirich cites the following offender numbers from 2019: “We had 830 juvenile murders, rapes and robberies – the worst of the worst. Ninety of those juveniles were transferred (to adult criminal court).”

Bill Powell is a juvenile court reform activist. He’s also a retired criminal justice coordinator for Shelby County government and former settlement agreement coordinator for Shelby County Government and the U.S. Department of Justice.

So, he knows the landscape.

“When you detain someone, it essentially doubles the chances of recidivism,” Powell said, referencing data from multiple national studies of juvenile offenders. “We bring too many kids into the system.”

Hear it? The district attorney is first speaking from a place of law and order.

The activist, although acknowledging detention is the right call in some (though he would say few) cases, is first speaking from a place of mercy.

It’s not that these disparate voices never can find common ground, but that ground is a narrow plat and neither easily reached nor maintained.

Also, those disparate voices are reflective of a very real divide among the populace.

Asked what he would say to the two camps – justice first, and mercy first – assistant district attorney Chris West sought out the neutral zone.

“Whatever your skew on this, both sides want the best outcome we can have,” West said. “Who doesn’t want less juvenile crime?”

Objective or subjective?

But not just less juvenile crime, less juvenile warehousing, too.

“The whole point is to keep children out of detention, if we can,” Shelby County Juvenile Court Judge Dan H. Michael said.

Decades ago, whether or not a juvenile was detained was “very subjective,” Michael says. In fact, it was largely based on an intake interview. And if a teen’s emotions were running high, Michael says that sometimes would have a negative influence.

The old process, the judge says, led to detaining more juveniles than the detention center was meant to hold: “We’d have 180 to 200 children at the detention center and many would be sleeping on mattresses on the floor. We’ve cut our transports (to the detention center) by 80%. It allows us to get children out of the system and still provide services to them because we’ve issued a summons.”

The court now employs DAT – or Detention Assessment Tool – to largely determine whether a juvenile will be detained. The process came out of the recent U.S. Department of Justice Oversight period.

“If the DAT score is below 19, you’re going home,” Michael said.

When police apprehend a juvenile, the nature of the offense will have a large say in what happens next. If, for example, a juvenile is caught shoplifting snacks from a convenience store, that’s a misdemeanor. In all likelihood, the kid would be issued a summons and not detained at the detention center.

“Odds are, the child will never be brought to court,” West said.

Rather, a juvenile in that circumstance would meet with a probation officer, receive counseling or be directed to a youth program, and perhaps be assigned community service.

Worth noting: Whether it is shoplifting, auto theft or aggravated assault, a juvenile is technically not arrested.

“Under the law, a child is taken into custody and that’s purposeful language,” the judge said. “So later, if anyone asks, ‘Have you ever been arrested?’ They can say no, they have not, even though it looks the same and they’re in handcuffs.”

Pryor, before being shot to death on Sept. 21, was not merely shoplifting snacks. He had been a frequent flier with police, but his DAT score was below 19 and he was not detained at the Juvenile Detention Center.

How does one get to a score of 19?

When asked, the DA’s office referred the question to Michael’s office. His office independently referred the question to the DA’s office. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the juvenile detention center, declined to provide detailed information. But a blank DAT sheet does indicate that a Class A Felony is worth 19 points in the scoring system and a misdemeanor zero points.

What is clear: Pryor had been brought to the Juvenile Detention Center four times and not held. In all the cases, he was involved in alleged crimes that were felonies, including once leading police on a two-state car chase and in another incident burglarizing a business with others and stealing guns.

Weirich believes the first offense, when Pryor was out past 3 a.m. and in possession of multiple stolen key fobs and led police on the car chase, was more than enough for him to be held.

And without question, stealing guns should have resulted in detainment, she said, adding: “That’s a game-changer, a juvenile with a stolen gun.”

Even so, Weirich doesn’t believe the DAT score has to be an absolute: “I guess we have to have objective criteria. But when you’re talking about youth, our most valuable resource, there should be room for subjective (latitude).”

For a few months, there was a juvenile assessment center housed on the campus of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. In theory, Pryor – or any other juvenile -- might have been taken there after being picked up by police.

But the center didn’t last in its original form because there was conflict over how police could bring juveniles to the facility.

“Police were never not allowed to refer,” Dr. Altha Stewart, head of UT’s Center for Health in Justice Involved Youth, told The Daily Memphian last spring. “The concern that was raised … we felt the model the county contracted for was not consistent with the model where a child had to be transferred in handcuffs. I never quite understood why a voluntary program needed to have a child appear in handcuffs.”

Black, white and gray

The U.S. Department of Justice appointed Dr. Michael Lieber, a professor in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences at the University of South Florida, to monitor Shelby County Juvenile Court for unequal treatment of Black youth.

“Black kids and white kids in the same situation, same criminal history, were getting different results,” Powell said, adding that Black teens were four times as likely to be taken by police to juvenile detention and twice as likely to be held there.

Shelby County Juvenile Court’s preliminary report for 2019 showed Black males made up the preponderance of “serious offenses.”

Black males accounted for 991 allegations in total – including 300 aggravated assaults, 270 aggravated robberies, 130 aggravated burglaries, 40 carjackings, 40 attempted murders in the first degree, 27 aggravated sexual battery offenses, 12 aggravated kidnappings, and 8 first-degree murders.

By comparison, Black females made up 97 “serious offenses,” white males 89, males defined as “other” 12, white females 6, and “other” females 1.

Michael says the DAT scoring helps prevent subjective detention, adding that they are not held “because of brown skin or white skin; it keeps you because of what you are charged with. The vast majority are for very serious offenses, like aggravated robbery, carjacking, murder, attempted murder, aggravated rape.

“We don’t have children in the detention center for stealing a bicycle.”

The judge also notes that serious crimes committed by juveniles rarely occur in isolation: “Most children I see aren’t solo offenders.”

While local statistics show the bulk of the most serious offenses being committed by Black males, something else tends to get overlooked.

“Unfortunately,” Weirich said, “the victims of juvenile crime are also (usually) African Americans.”

Overall detention numbers have dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael says, but serious crimes by juveniles spiked.

Weirich cites a “disturbing increase” in gun crime by juveniles. She believes Shelby County School officials were trying to make the best decision they could by going with virtual education only when most other public and private schools were at least offering part-time in-person learning, but she does wonder about the effect.

“They don’t have activities to participate in, additional adults in their lives,” she said. “This is not a slap at the school system, but kids need to be in school.”

Pryor’s crime spree, whether coincidence or not, took off during the pandemic.

Michael does say that S.H.A.P.E (School House Adjustment Program Enterprise) has had some positive impact in Shelby County. Students who get in trouble for minor infractions, such as simple theft or simple assault, can avoid having a juvenile record if they successfully complete a S.H.A.P.E. course.

Juvenile detention negatively impacts a teen’s attitude toward school, Powell says, with national data showing there is less chance of returning to school: “And if they do, they’re more likely to drop out.”

It’s not all negative numbers, however, as West notes that of Shelby County’s 113,000 students K-12, juvenile court only comes into contact with about 5% in a given year.

“Most of our children in this community are good kids doing the best they can, sometimes in (tough) situations,” he said.

Escalating problems

It is a scenario that Weirich has seen far too many times: Two Black juveniles get into an argument that turns into an aggravated assault.

Maybe they’re gang members, maybe they’re not or maybe they’re gang members but this particular beef is incidental to that fact.

“Today’s aggravated assault becomes next week’s murder and it involves the same two juveniles,” she said.

From 2004-2017, Joe Hunter operated a youth ministry in Frayser called G.A.N.G., which he mostly ran out of a community center. Known as “Uncle Joe” to the kids he was working with, Hunter’s methods were not always conventional.

In one moment, he might literally be teaching from the Bible and invoking the power of Jesus and love.

In the next, he might be nose-to-nose with a young gang member and speaking truth laced with the unvarnished language of the street.

Hunter, 59, recalls that during the period of DOJ oversight of juvenile court, the Annie E. Casey Foundation was involved too. Nationally, the foundation first launched a Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative more than 25 years ago; it also would do some work here with local juvenile court and justice system leaders. Hunter says he was asked to be a part of a committee, but quit after a couple of years because no one seemed interested in listening to his viewpoint.

“They say all the right things,” said Hunter, who in 2017 moved to Chattanooga to work for the city and run a teen empowerment program. “But it’s all politics.”

Among other things, Hunter says he was recommending prevention/intervention begin earlier.

“You know the situation in Memphis,” he said. “It’s hard enough for adults to make it. Kids, there’s no Daddy, maybe Mom’s on drugs, or maybe Mom’s working two jobs and doing all she can.

“A kid sees that, and he thinks, ‘There’s no way out. I’m all by myself.’

“And the reason he’s carrying a pistol?

“His whole life has been around carrying a pistol.”

Playing the odds

“Most people don’t wake up and go, ‘Hey, I want to join a gang,’” said assistant DA Chris West. “It’s a process.”

When considering a juvenile accused of a violent offense for transfer to adult criminal court, even gang membership might not be what it seems.

Several years ago, Michael introduced pre-hearing transfer reports as an additional tool to be used and shared with all involved – prosecutor, defense attorney, judge. He says the idea was to take the juvenile’s entire history into account – not just previous offenses, but family background, including whether there has been abuse in the home – and involvement in school and extracurricular activities.

Victim statements also play a role and, naturally, cut both ways.

“We will contact victims,” West said. “What are their feelings? A gun didn’t get pointed at me. It was in their face.”

Said Michael: “I need victims’ input. Both direct testimony and a victim impact statement. Some offer very strong opinions. Others don’t. The more information I have as a judge, the better I think my decisions are.”

West stresses that every case, every juvenile, is unique. He also says that Michael is right, it is rare that a juvenile commits a serious offense alone. That means if, say, three juveniles are involved in a carjacking, it’s critical to determine the roles of each.

Although he adds, “Under Tennessee law, if you’re in for a penny you’re in for a pound.”

So, suppose three teens commit a carjacking. One is only 15, but he’s also the one wielding a handgun. A 16-year-old is driving and a 17-year-old is participating – he knew what the intent was – but his role was more passive and he had no past felony involvement.

“You have to treat that individual different than the one with the gun,” West said.

Most likely, West says, they would seek transfer to adult criminal court for the gunman. The driver is a “50-50” call depending on past history, while the older, but more passive participant, would be left in juvenile custody.

“The state will request about 250 transfers a year,” Michael said. “I grant less than 40%, on average.”

So far this year, the judge says he has granted just 37. And whatever his ruling, there is risk. A teen sent to adult criminal court might well pass through a door of no return.

If he denies a request for transfer to adult court, there’s risk that he’s returning a violent offender to the community to resume his criminal conduct.

“The legislature doesn’t give me a crystal ball or a magic wand,” the judge said. “If I make a wrong decision, people might get hurt. I’ve apologized to victims in the past.”

The close calls weigh on him.

“People don’t understand what it is to sit in judgment on someone else, especially a child.”

Powell, unapologetically, lands on the side of mercy for juvenile offenders over law-and-order justice. Even in the wake of Pryor trying to carjack a vehicle and getting killed -- after he was not detained because his DAT score didn’t meet the minimum number.

“That tool showed he was not a threat,” Powell said. “You can’t just look at any one particular case. There’s a tendency to point to the more egregious cases and conclude that’s the norm. That case is not the norm.

“You can prevent it by detaining everybody, but clearly you don’t want to do that. It’s all a risk assessment type thing, so you’ll never get everything exactly right.

“If the question is, what side do you want to err on, I’d err on the side of giving the kid a chance.”

A better way?

As an assistant DA, West may be in the business of prosecuting juvenile cases, but he also sees the system as its own entity.

“It is intended to be about rehabilitation. The rules are different (from adult court), and for good reason.”

Weirich’s plea for immediate intervention upon a juvenile being taken into custody is an attempt to serve both the masters of justice and mercy; or at least that would be her perspective and that of others in the juvenile court system.

“Maybe that child won’t be next year’s murder or robber, if we can get them on the right path,” she said. “We don’t have a large menu of options available.”

One option that has met with a degree of success is the “Cease Fire” program for some gun offenses. For example, Michael says a juvenile who is stopped for a traffic offense and has a gun in his car might be a candidate for the program and probation.

Another idea that Michael advocates is extending juvenile court jurisdiction all the way to age 25.

“I turn to brain science,” he said. “The frontal lobe has not matured until the mid-20s. Children make rash decisions at 16. They drive cars and hold jobs, but the frontal lobe has not yet developed a braking system, if you will. That’s why it’s so dangerous to have a gun. They’re impulsive.”

Michael says under this scenario, a 17-year-old might go into a juvenile facility, earn a high school diploma or GED, enroll in college or a trade school, get a job and then come before his court at age 21 with a track record of success and good behavior and be placed on probation until age 25. If he stayed out of trouble till then, his record could be expunged.

“If you respect the future of children,” he said, “then build a system that respects that future.”

Weirich doesn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, but said: “Maybe 21 would be a little easier to discuss.”

Powell isn’t buying.

“It’s bull. I wouldn’t trust our juvenile court to handle anybody. I certainly don’t want to expand their reach.”

Powell offers New York City’s “The Door” outreach program as a potential model.

“It’s a direct service organization available to kids and parents,” he said. “If the kid’s in trouble, they can go there and get a host of services and they don’t use the threat of locking them up, or locking the parents up.”

Michael is adamant that Memphis needs thousands of mentors. And expanded hours for churches and community centers.

“I tell them the streets are open 365 and 24/7,” the judge said.

Joe Hunter knows the streets never sleep. He’s been to too many funerals, made too many visits at 201 Poplar, to count.

As for mentors, Hunter says only the serious need apply.

“It can’t be, ‘Some weekend I’m gonna take you bowling.’ It’s not a photo op. It’s not for your resume.”

He also tires of hearing how sports can be a savior for young Black males: “Give them a computer and real-life man skills.”

Predictably, any large-scale program tied to government comes with the challenge that never seems to go away.

“Money is the obstacle,” Weirich said.

“It’s not money,” countered Hunter. “When I started G.A.N.G., I had nothing. And when I closed, I had nothing.”

Yet Hunter knows the power of money, too. And for the record, he is not advocating defunding the police.

What he will say, at least by way of philosophy if not practicality: “If you’re going to have a $7 million budget for suppression, also have a $7 million budget for prevention and intervention.”

End of the day …

Even if best juvenile court and prevention/intervention practices are achieved in the spirit of West’s question – who doesn’t want less juvenile crime? – what happens when none of that works for a troubled kid?

Weirich says not all the teenagers being thrown a lifeline – say, probation for two years, earning a GED and getting a job to avoid incarceration – are even willing to accept it.

“They’ll say, ‘Can’t I just go to the penal farm and do some time and be done with it?’”

Asked at what point it is on, say, a 16-year-old felony repeat offender to take personal responsibility no matter the mitigating circumstances in his background, Powell said: “There is a point you come to that conclusion.”

Powell then added: “It’s a conclusion you want to avoid whenever possible.”

But the unavoidable exists. And it can trump both justice and mercy.

“Some guys don’t want to be saved,” Hunter said. “They want to die at 25, an OG (original gangster).”

Provided they get that far.

When Pryor was still part-normal teenager, playing basketball at Booker T. Washington High School, he texted his coach, Antonio ‘Pops’ Harris around Father’s Day.

A few weeks ago, the coach shared with The Daily Memphian what Cameron had said:

“Pops, man, I got to get away. I’ve been doing a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have been doing. I need to get my mind right.”

‘Uncle Joe’ Hunter has heard words just like those many times.

He feels the kid’s pain.

He also looks at all those other crimes Pryor had committed and he sees a man/child making the same bad choices over and over – until on Sept. 21, when Pryor and two others were trying to carjack a white Mercedes SUV at an East Memphis gas station in broad daylight.

“At 16, you’ve been through some stuff,” Hunter said. “You can’t tell me at 16 you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

“Or that you were afraid of the other people you were with and they made you do it. At 16, you were growing as a criminal and it didn’t work out.

“Which is what I would have told you if I’d met you before you died.”