Limbo: Seattle man who killed at 14 wonders if he’ll be freed

May 19, 1992 should have been a day of justice for Tecle Ghebremichale. Instead it was his last.

Ghebremichale and a coworker spent the morning watching the teen who attacked them at their West Seattle minimart face judgement. Having watched the 16-year-old boy be convicted and sentenced in that shooting, the men returned to work at High Point Market that afternoon.

Not long after they returned, the boy’s 14-year-old brother, Jeremiah “J.J.” Bourgeois, stormed into the store and opened fire. Shot twice, Ghebremichale hung on for four hours before succumbing to his wounds.

Violent and uncontrollable, Bourgeois was condemned. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Washington state’s most severe punishment short of execution.

That sentence, like most life sentences issued to American children, has since been thrown out. The U.S. Supreme Court found damning youthful offenders so completely to violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

By all appearances, Bourgeois has become a model of transformation. The violent boy grew into a thoughtful man, who, having spent 25 years behind bars, waits on a state board to clear him for release.

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Bourgeois and his supporters had hoped he would be released following an October hearing before the state Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, which decides when youthful offenders like Bourgeois may be paroled. They were disappointed; the board opined that Bourgeois was “more likely than not” to commit new crimes if released.

“I am still coming to terms with the notion that I am a likely recidivist. I don’t know if I will be able to get over this,” Bourgeois wrote in a recent column for The Crime Report, where he is a contributor. “Having been denied parole after 25 years of confinement for crimes committed when I was 14-years old, I can now envision the day when all I will have to live for is writing my monthly columns.”

Bourgeois’ plea for release comes as Washington and the country struggle to absorb new scientific evidence that appears to undercut justifications for punitive sentences against younger offenders.

The state Supreme Court is currently weighing a case that could prompt a review of sentences issued to offenders who committed their crimes in their teens or early 20s. At the same time, offenders like Bourgeois who were sentenced to life in prison for murders committed as teens are pushing for their release due to a watershed 2012 Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama. They call themselves the Miller Family.

‘Any parent knows’

Like Bourgeois, Evan Miller was 14 when he committed the murder that saw him sentenced to life.

Miller and another Alabama boy beat Miller’s neighbor Cole Cannon nearly to death during a 2003 robbery. They then burned his trailer down, leaving the gravely injured Cannon to die in the fire.

Heinous as Miller’s crime was, the sentence he received was deemed unjust in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision. The majority found that teens could be sentenced to life without parole, but that such a sentence could not be required by law, as is the case in Washington for killers like Bourgeois who are convicted of aggravated first-degree murder.

Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan noted that teens cannot control their environment and have difficulty appreciating the consequences of their actions. Building on recent decisions limiting the punishment of youthful offenders, Kagan said in the opinion that justice must recognize the obvious – children cannot be judged as though they have an adult’s capacity to distinguish right from wrong.

Studies show that progressive, significant brain development occurs through a person’s teen years and into their mid-20s. Faculties related to impulse control and judgement are late to develop, leaving adolescents less able to regulate their behavior.

“Our decisions rested not only on common sense -- on what ‘any parent knows’ -- but on science and social science as well,” Kagan said in the decision.

“A judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles,” Kagan continued. “By requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole … the mandatory sentencing schemes before us violate this principle of proportionality, and so the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.”

‘I was being led by fools’

The decision forced 29 states to review life sentences delivered to teens. Those whose sentences did not align with the Supreme Court decision were resentenced.

For Bourgeois, that meant that, for the first time, he could contemplate a life after prison.

Bourgeois sentence was revised to one that allowed for the possibility of release after he had served 25 years. Though his incarceration continued, the change was freeing.

In an interview with a psychologist hired by his attorney, Bourgeois explained his attitude during his early years in prison. He described it as a “war footing.”

“I was being led by fools,” Bourgeois explained, according to the psychologist’s report. “Older guys said to me, ‘If I had your time, I would do X.’”

Bourgeois had been living on the street with his brother when he killed Ghebremichale. Court records show he had been on a destructive path for years before the murder.

Since his incarceration, he has twice been convicted of assaulting prison staff, though the most recent incident occurred 19 years ago. And, while he has been issued dozens of infractions while incarcerated, his most recent violent infraction came in 2007.

According to court records, Bourgeois said his prior clashes with prison staff occurred when he believed he was going to spend his entire life in prison. He has since come to believe his life has value, even if he spends it all in prison.

Having spent his entire adult life in state custody, Bourgeois obtained his high school equivalency diploma and paralegal license while incarcerated, and has nearly completed a bachelor’s degree.

“Education is the one thing that has kept me grounded and given me focus,” Bourgeois said, according to the psychologist’s report. “It kept me from living in prison in my mind. … I have been able to live outside the prison concept.”

Release remains elusive

To be released from prison, Bourgeois must convince the four-member Indeterminate Sentence Review Board that he is fit for release. He attempted to do so in 2017 during a pair of hearings at Stafford Creek Corrections Center near Aberdeen.

The board noted that Bourgeois expressed genuine remorse for killing Ghebremichale and wounding a second man in the store. The board, in a 3-1 vote, nonetheless found that Bourgeois was “not releasable,” in part because a psychological assessment found him to be a “moderate to high” risk to commit additional crimes.

“The board does find by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Bourgeois is more likely than not to commit any new criminal law violations if released on conditions,” a board member noted for the majority.

The review board will again take up Bourgeois case in July 2019. In the meantime, though, state courts continue to reexamine the way young offenders have been punished for their crimes.

Last Monday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments related to a 28-year prison sentence imposed against a Seattle-area man who killed another young man at age 19.

An appeals court found that Keven Light-Roth should have been allowed to ask for less-lengthy sentence because of his youth when he was sentenced for the murder of Tython Bonnett. Washington state judges had been prohibited from considering an offender’s age when crafting a sentence.

Attorneys with the King County Prosecutor’s Office successfully sought Supreme Court review of that decision. They argued in part that the lower court decision opens the door for an unknown number of offenders to demand new sentences.

“There is no obvious limiting principle that would prevent any other youthful adult offender from seeking resentencing,” Senior Deputy Prosecutor Ann Summers said in the appeal. “The holding in this case, if allowed to stand, would necessitate countless resentencing hearings at great cost to society and the court system.”

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in the Light-Roth case in coming months.

SeattlePI senior editor Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at @levipulk. Find more from Levi here on his author page.