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The case of Cyntoia Brown also brought into the open a most intense national debate upon the complex issues of juvenile justice, sexual abuse, and self-defense. Accused and charged with murder at only 16 years in 2004, Brown killed 43-year-old Johnny Mitchell Allen, becoming one such legal battle for over a decade that gained massive public attention.
Brown’s background is nothing short of harrowing. She had been forced to run away from a home that was just not conducive for rearing and was being sexually trafficked. Allen had picked her up from the motel on the night in question. She argued, on the contrary, that she was afraid of him, believing Allen intended to harm her, so she shot and killed him.
She was subsequently convicted of first-degree murder by the trial and sentenced to life. Such a hard sentence, particularly on such a young lady with the mitigating circumstances in which the crime took place, shocked the whole world. People felt the court had not looked into the backdrop behind her committing the crime-a helpless girl confined in a circle of exploitation and threats.
The case thus became a rallying cry for advocates of criminal justice reform, especially as it applied to juveniles and victims of sex trafficking. Supporters maintained that Brown was a victim herself and that her actions were a desperate act of self-preservation. This public outcry eventually led to increased scrutiny of the case and ultimately to a commutation of her sentence.
According to reports, Brown climbed into a pickup truck on Murfreesboro Pike with a stranger and went to his home. She ate with him, watched TV with him, and eventually got into his bed. As she stated in her court hearing, he had been showing off his guns and saying that he was in the army and was a “straight shooter.”
Despite her actions, she claimed she felt nervous around him, so when they were in bed and he turned over suddenly, she thought he was going for a gun. In an act of what she claimed to be for fear of her life, Brown shot and killed him at the back of his head using a .40-caliber handgun.
Life Behind Bars
Cyntoia Brown, now 28, is serving a life sentence at the Tennessee Prison for Women for murdering the 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent. Cyntoia Brown’s release date is not even considerable until sometime after her 69th birthday when she will be eligible for parole.
Brown never denied her crime, but said she was forced into prostitution by a violent man she was in a relationship with. “I shot him,” she said in a conversation that was recorded shortly after the crime.
“I executed him.” The shock of this particular situation comes as a wave of scientific studies has shown that adolescents are behind adults in brain development, specifically in areas that regulate aggression, long-term planning, and abstract thinking. Many are questioning the sentence, referring to research that shows that childhood trauma can negatively affect brain development.
Currently, Tennessee is getting negative attention as 183 people are presently serving life sentences for offenses they committed in their teenage years. According to Kathy Sinback, court administrator for the Juvenile Court of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, “A life sentence in Tennessee is life without parole.
You are taking a kid at age 14 or 15 or 16 and deciding the rest of their life based on who they are at that age, and they’re not developed human beings at that time. You have kids at their peak of poor judgment, impulsivity, and lack of development and we’re taking that one thing that they do and locking them into sentences that are going to last for the rest of their lives.”
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Petition for Her Release
Campaigners are calling for Brown’s release, arguing that she was in a terrible situation as a result of being forced into sex trafficking by an abusive drug dealer named Kutthroat when she was very young. The Cyntoia Brown case inspired a petition saying: “This woman (who is now 25) was only a child at 16 years of age at the time of the incident when her 42-year-old victim (a grown man who had lived his life) solicited sex with [her].
He had the upper hand being the adult and should have decided to help her seek a better way instead of co-signing on her destruction by soliciting sex.”
Celebrities like rapper T.I. and singer Rihanna are also speaking out against what many consider to be an injustice.
