Young Killers Face Life Terms, Cling to Hope of Freedom : Justice: In Michigan alone, 52 teen-agers were serving so-called “natural life” sentences at the beginning of this year. They can expect to spend five decades behind bars.

At 18, Shawn Campbell dreamed of a career as a chef and marriage to his girlfriend. A year later, he clings to those dreams through the bars of his cell and the gloom of a life sentence with no parole.

“Yeah, I have a lot of hope,” he insisted across the table of the sparsely furnished room used for parole hearings at the Michigan Reformatory.

But Campbell and other young lifers have little reason to hope. In its rage against violent crime, society has locked them up and thrown away the key; a life sentence for a teen-ager is a long, long sentence.

The man who helped convict Campbell of murder said youthful offenders are so hardened to violence they rarely consider these consequences.

“I’m not insensitive to the fact that you’ve got another wasted life and that’s the defendant, and his family suffers as a result of that,” said Gerald Warner of the Macomb County prosecutor’s office.

“But we can’t let people go around killing people just because they’re young.”

In Michigan alone, 52 teen-agers were serving so-called “natural life” sentences at the beginning of this year. Barring successful appeals or executive clemency, they could expect to spend five decades behind bars.

“I’m missing out on a whole lot of things. Life,” said lifer Gene Bridges, 20, of Detroit.

Already, Campbell has missed a lot. He earned a high school equivalency degree in prison instead of marching across a stage to pick up a diploma with classmates. His younger brother is preparing to tour Europe on a soccer team while Campbell plays baseball in the prison yard.

A gift of one day of freedom would be spent hanging out with his dad and friends. “There’s no limit to what you’d want to do after getting out for one day. . . . There’s so much you’d want to do,” he said.

Campbell keeps busy. He works a double shift at the prison furniture factory, takes college classes and tutors other inmates.

Still, a television show or a letter from a friend can remind him of home and a youth spent playing hockey, boating or cruising with pals.

Campbell grew up in Warren but moved out of his parents’ home in his early teens due to friction with his parents. He worked at a factory in Flint and had minor brushes with the law but no convictions.

By 18, Campbell’s life was straightening out. He lived with an uncle and worked two jobs, including a culinary apprenticeship, while finishing high school. He got along better with his parents.

But then he was convicted of murdering a 20-year-old friend. Campbell contends the friend died accidentally during one of their frequent friendly wrestling contests; the jury decided Campbell strangled him.

“Well, once my appeal comes, I mean if I lost during my appeal, that would shatter a whole lot of hope, but there’s always the next time,” Campbell said. Letters from friends, and visits from his parents and his girlfriend, sustain him.

It’s harder for Bridges to ward off gloom as he serves his life sentence for the stabbing death of his father when he was 17.

He has no visitors to bolster his spirits. His mother is sick and doesn’t have a car to bring his brother and two sisters from Detroit, a three-hour trip.

How would he describe his life? “Hell. That’s it, plain, old hell.”

“Depressed, back up against the wall, scared somebody’s going to do something. Food is bad, everything, no respect, you don’t get no respect. Nothing, you can’t do nothing.”

He is in protective custody, confined to his 5-by-7-foot cell most of the day rather than mixing with the general population of inmates.

He has no job, no clothes other than prison blues and little to do but lie on his bunk. A Bible is one of his few possessions. A high school math class breaks some of the boredom.

“There’s not much to look forward to for somebody like that,” said Rolf Berg, a public defender who is handling Bridges’ appeal.

Still, he hangs onto the same hope that sustains Campbell: “Deep in my heart, I know I’m going home. I know I’m going to win my case,” he said.

John Loepke, 20, of Battle Creek, also is appealing his conviction in the murder of a 17-year-old girl. He’s studying small-engine repair and plans to take college classes. “It’s just something to do. I got to think about the possibility that someday I’ll get out,” he said.

Nonetheless, he has come to terms with his life sentence. “Oh, I’ve accepted it, and it’s something you’ve got to deal with,” he said.

It helps that he has found God in prison: “It was like everything that bothered me just went away,” he said.

Mostly, he misses women and his freedom.

“I call it Charlie’s House because he tells you when to get up, when to eat, when to shower, when to turn your lights off at night. He even tells you when to turn the TV down,” he said.

“I don’t expect anybody to feel sorry for me,” he said. “But to me, I don’t think anybody should be sent to prison for doing a crime. To me, they should be sent someplace where they get rehabilitated. Prison, all they do is throw you in a cage and lock the door. There ain’t no rehabilitation.”