Laquanda Jacobs- Arkansas- Convicted in 1993 (RELEASED)

(Above photo credit: Midwest Innocence Project website)

Laquanda "Faye" Jacobs is one of the Midwest Innocence Project's three convicts on the front page of the clients section of their website. She was convicted of murdering a young man for his Chicago Bulls jacket as a teenager and sentenced to life in prison. However, in 2017, Arkansas introduce the "Fair Sentencing of Minors Act" which was signed into law, barring sentences of life without parole for minors entirely—including those already convicted. Even though Jacobs sentence is now vacated as a result, she still sits in prison, awaiting parole or re-sentencing. Below is a more detailed snippet about her case from the same article written by "The Nation" writer Danielle Wolffe about the Fair Sentencing act:

"On Laquanda Faye Jacobs’s 17th birthday, February 22, 1992, she walked through the alley behind the Little Rock City Jail in handcuffs, leg cuffs, and waist restraints to her first court appearance. She was a juvenile, so she was placed in her own row—male inmates in front and female inmates behind her. Jacobs’s case was high-profile; news cameras flashed and reporters screamed questions. Her brother Rodney tried to push them back and was restrained by police. “I was shaking inside and outside. I was so scared I almost urinated on myself,” Jacobs recalled. She had been accused of shooting and killing her classmate, 17-year-old Kevin Gaddy, on February 9 for his Chicago Bulls jacket.

But Jacobs, who maintains her innocence, had two alibi witnesses—friends she’d been doing errands with that day, going from the laundromat to their homes. There was no forensic evidence connecting her to the crime. Police were looking for a woman who was approximately 30, had scars under her eyes, and was wearing pants, a blue-gray coat, and a knit cap. Instead, they picked up Jacobs, a 16-year-old ninth grader at Mabelvale High, who was wearing the same long white dress in which she’d gone to church that morning. At the station, the police dusted her hands for gunpowder residue and then let her go.

Almost two weeks later, Jacobs’s parents and pastor walked her into the police station to clear her name. “We didn’t know anything about the law, none of us. Nobody in our family had ever been to jail,” Jacobs said.

Her parents never saw their daughter in the free world again. Jacobs was taken into custody and later offered a plea. She consulted her father, who worked in a slaughterhouse for Kruse Meat in Benton. He was a loquacious Baptist renowned for his ability to talk people out of violence, and he and Jacobs were very close. Her father advised her not to confess to something she didn’t do.

Each day that Jacobs was held awaiting trial, “it felt like somebody was pressing a pillow over my face and taking away my breath,” she recalled. “Every once in a while, they’d lift it up and I could get a breath, but then I’d go get dragged right back under again.”

For her defense, the court appointed what Jacobs refers to as a “public pretender,” who she says met with her for the first time on April 19, 1993, the day before her trial. At the end of a two-day trial, she was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Jacobs says that she was forced to take pills in prison—possibly antidepressants—and threatened with solitary confinement when she tried to refuse. She remembers eating with her eyes closed and not combing her hair. When her dad complained, he was told that the drug regimen was standard procedure for juveniles. He fought back, and Jacobs was eventually taken off the pills. She tried to fight however she could, composing handwritten letters from her cell to anyone she thought would pay attention. An attorney told her father that he could get Jacobs out in 105 days if he coughed up $100,000—money that her father didn’t have. “That was a blow to my dad,” Jacobs said. “I wonder if he felt he let me down. He always said he prayed to God not to let him die before his daughter gets out of prison.”

Now 42, Jacobs has been in prison for 25 years. She is currently incarcerated at the McPherson Unit in Newport, a series of low-lying brown concrete buildings that look as if they’re disappearing into the surrounding boggy, treeless countryside. There is nothing for miles around except bush-airplane landing strips, the occasional farm, and a clear 360-degree view of the horizon. McPherson’s population includes all of Arkansas’s female death-row inmates (there are currently none) and Jacobs, the state’s only female juvenile lifer.

When I visit her, Jacobs is wearing a white prison jumpsuit with the words Arkansas DOC inmate stamped on the back. She has a high-neck T-shirt on beneath it because she is self-conscious about her large breasts. Jacobs is heavyset, with a delicate, cared-for appearance. She often wears gold metallic eyeshadow, and her mohawk is carefully styled with Royal Crown hair dressing.

Jacobs is a devout Christian and sings in the prison choir. She is also something of a newshound. A combination of faith and logic has helped her put things in perspective. She reads the Arkansas Democrat Gazette every morning; a decade into her incarceration, she started noticing friends’ names in the obituaries or police blotter. “In those years, I was on the fringe of getting involved with gangs that could have brought me trouble,” she said. “I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been locked up. But it could have been bad. I choose to believe my life was saved in prison.”

In August 2011, Jacobs watched the release of the West Memphis Three—a trio of teenage boys whose conviction for the murder of three 8-year-olds had been shown to be fraught with doubts. “On the one hand, it gave me hope, because they were letting other juveniles go as the truth came to light,” she recalled. “On the other hand, I was thinking, ‘But what about me?’”

This March, in response to the Miller and Montgomery decisions, Arkansas passed Act 539. Much like Missouri’s statute, it established that juvenile lifers could receive parole-board hearings after serving 30 years in lieu of resentencing hearings. Then the Fair Sentencing of Minors Act of 2017 was signed into law, barring sentences of life without parole for minors entirely—including those already convicted. This act effectively vacated all juvenile life sentences in the state, sparking a debate between prosecutors and defense lawyers in Pulaski County, where Jacobs will seek either parole or resentencing. Defense lawyers argue that Miller and Montgomery entitle their clients to individual resentencing hearings, at which a judge might offer a greatly reduced sentence. Further, they note that juvenile lifers have already had hearings over the past few years, prior to passage of Act 539, and some have received shorter sentences. Thus, juvenile lifers who haven’t had a hearing yet should be entitled to equal protection under the law. For their part, prosecutors argue that since all life sentences for juveniles have been vacated, the resentencing required under Miller and Montgomery no longer applies—after all, these inmates are technically no longer lifers. All of them will be up for parole eventually, and so their fates should be decided by the parole board.

Jacobs found faith combing through the stories of the male juvenile lifers who had been resentenced in the state. She was especially interested in the case of Detric Avelle Franklin, who after serving 25 years had been resentenced to a 40-year term and then been granted parole. Franklin had been resentenced in Pulaski County, where Jacobs was slated to appear for her own hearing. In anticipation, she spent more time working with the social-reentry app on her MP4 player, practicing everything from changing a tire to ironing clothes to creating a résumé. It was her only option, since lifers aren’t allowed to take vocational-tech or reentry classes. Jacobs started to believe that she’d be going home, and she was excited to do all the things she’d dreamed about: helping her elderly mom, driving a car, finishing cosmetology school, having a baby.

With the stories of her male counterparts giving her hope, Jacobs stood in front of the courtroom on January 12. Her family and friends sat in the benches; she’d convinced them that the judge would resentence her that day, maybe even let her out.

Then she found out that her lawyer had filed a continuance for summer.

“I had lost touch with reality, I guess, at that moment,” Jacobs confessed. “It was a shock. I didn’t cry because I wanted to appear strong for my family.”

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are now wrangling over whether the five juvenile lifers in Pulaski County are entitled to new resentencing hearings. Jacobs believes that Arkansas legislators passed Act 539 to save the state money on the costly proceedings. She thinks it’s really more a “manipulation of what the Supreme Court actually asked for.” If her resentencing hearing is canceled due to Act 539, she’ll have to wait another five years to apply for parole—and at a parole-board hearing, she would not have the opportunity to tell her full story or insist on her innocence. “It’s very disappointing. I have hope, but you know there are others who don’t have hope, especially those who are just arriving. I have 25 years [served]. I can’t imagine having done only five years and now Arkansas is saying, ‘We want you to do 30.’ It’s heartbreaking.”

Jacobs always has a backup plan. Under the worst-case scenario, her resentencing hearing is canceled and she’ll have to wait five more years to appear before the parole board. Instead of sitting around idle, she wants the opportunity to take classes. Jacobs completed her GED in her first year of incarceration and has since taken whatever classes she’s allowed to pay for out of pocket, from sociology to psychology. She acts as a peer mentor and watches kids during visiting day. But lifers aren’t allowed to take most courses.

And as to whether she’s still a lifer? Her sentence was formally vacated by a Jackson County Circuit Court judge in order to comply with Miller. On the Arkansas Department of Correction’s paperwork, however, she still has a sentence of life without parole.

“The way I understand it, I have no sentence at all now—I was waiting for resentencing for a sentence. None of it makes any sense,” she said.

In Jacobs’s case, it never did.

www.thenation.com/article/women-without-parole/

Laqunada Jacobs on Midwest Innocence Project site: themip.org/clients/laquanda-faye-jacobs/



Thoughts? Considering her age at the time and the new law, it seems there is a good likelihood Jacobs could be paroled one day. Of course, her and the Midwest Innocnece Project would probably like complete exoneration instead of and/or in addition even if she were to be released, so that could be another matter for the courts. I would agree juvenile convicts under 18 be given a chance at parole. Some may deserve to spend the rest of their life in prison, if the crime or crimes were particularly heinous for example, but let's just say a 17-year old's life without parole sentence is changed to life with parole eligibility after 25 years. It does not mean they'd get out in 25 years regardless. They could still spend life, there would just be a possibility some wouldn't and a good parole board should be able to determine on a case-by-case basis. And there are some cases where it's just a teenage brain that isn't fully developed yet to realize the consequences of their actions. Or other cases where it's a matter of the circumstances around them, growing up in a rough neighborhood, the wrong crowd, and despite what they did as a teenager, could be a responsible adult if given a second chance. (Of course in this case, Jacobs may actually be entirely innocent regardless, but for argument's sake, even if she was guilty...)

In the meantime, I do hope the limbo ends soon for Jacobs so the uncertainty is at least over.