Killers’ Mother Questions Fairness of Life Sentences

As the single mother of two adolescent boys, Sharry Holland always worried. Mostly about small stuff, though. Like maybe they would get in the wrong car or go to the wrong party or sass somebody they shouldn’t.

She knew trouble can easily come calling for teenagers, enticing them into potentially dangerous situations.

“It’s such a thin line they walk,” Holland said. “It’s like they’re trying to stay on the balance beam of life throughout adolescence.”

On May 22, 1995, her two sons--Jason, 19, and Micah, 16--fell off that balance beam in a way that Holland never anticipated. Along with two other Conejo Valley youths, the Holland brothers got into a backyard brawl with two acquaintances. It wasn’t about much more than boyhood bravado--and a few bags of marijuana--but it ended with disastrous results.

A 16-year-old Agoura Hills boy named Jimmy Farris, the popular son of a Los Angeles police officer, was left dead, stabbed twice. The friend Farris was defending in the fight, Mike McLoren, who was also the owner of the pot, was badly injured, bleeding from three stab wounds.

Six weeks ago, Jason and Micah Holland, Brandon Hein, 19, of Oak Park and Tony Miliotti, 18, of Westlake Village were convicted of first-degree murder by a Malibu jury. The jury also found a special circumstance--that the murder happened during a felony robbery, the attempted theft of the marijuana. Because of the special circumstance, the four youths face a possible life sentence without parole. Their sentencing is scheduled for today, although their attorneys have asked Malibu Municipal Judge Lawrence J. Mira for a delay.

Sharry Holland knows Mira’s hands are basically tied, that there is little chance of getting around the conviction and the sentence it carries--although Micah and Tony Miliotti, who were both juveniles at the time of the murder, could be given lighter sentences. She is holding out hope that Mira will not send all four to prison for life.

“I’d ask him to search his heart,” she said. “I don’t see how anybody could think that life in prison for any of them is fair.

“How can they just throw the boys’ lives away over a mistake, an accident, an unplanned, chaotic backyard fight?” she asked.

During the trial, Jason Holland testified that it was he who stabbed Jimmy Farris. He told the jury that he and the other boys were drunk and that he was trying to defend his younger brother, who McLoren had in a headlock. He never intended to kill Farris, he said.

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Police and the district attorney’s office believe the youths were linked to a suburban wannabe gang called the Gumbys and suggested that the deadly fight was motivated by a desire to enhance the gang’s reputation. But the defense repeatedly denied the connection and Mira allowed only minimal testimony about the issue during the trial.

Sharry Holland said that by testifying, Jason wanted to take responsibility for his actions. She said he’s ready to accept whatever punishment the judge hands out. But she said he still can’t bear the fact that his brother and his friends will also be punished for what he did.

“He thinks that it is pretty much, ‘I know my life is over,’ but that it shouldn’t be for the other boys,” she said.

Ira Salzman, who is representing Jason, said the murder conviction with a special circumstance was too harsh. Based on Jason’s testimony on the witness stand, he said, he expected the youth to receive a voluntary or involuntary manslaughter conviction only.

“I believed that the other three would have been acquitted,” Salzman said. “Jason Holland was never portrayed as not guilty of a crime. He certainly was presented, and fairly so, as having been guilty of unreasonable use of force, which sadly took a life. But whatever he did was motivated by concern for his brother.”

To send all four to prison for life is an improper use of one of the justice system’s toughest punishments, he said.

“We want to reserve one of the more onerous punishments we have for coldblooded intentional murderers,” Salzman said. “Even the prosecutors can’t say with a straight face that there was intent to kill here.”

Salzman said he felt prosecutors were particularly tough on these defendants because of the suburban setting of the crime.

“If this case didn’t arise out of Agoura Hills, it certainly would have been allowed to be settled on a fair, just basis,” he said. “This is the kind of case that happens in downtown Los Angeles or Compton every day. But because it happened in Agoura, that makes it somehow some major moral crusade.”

Prosecutor Mike Latin said the suburban setting may have made a difference in the amount of publicity the case received, but scoffed at the defense contention that it heightened prosecutorial zeal. “I think that is ridiculous,” he said.

He declined to comment on the sentencing, beyond saying it is entirely up to the judge. But he said Jason’s testimony that he was the lone stabber was rejected by the jury. Latin said he and prosecutor Jeff Semow plan to argue against the defense attorneys’ request to continue the sentencing.

“They are trying to delay the inevitable,” Latin said. “We think that is a shame. The victim’s family deserves their day in court. . . . They are emotionally prepared for the young men that murdered their son to be sentenced. It will be devastating to them if they have to wait again.”

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Sharry Holland said she wishes she could reach out to the Farris family. But it’s still too early and she fears the reaction she would get.

“If I could do this all over again, and I certainly wouldn’t want to,” she said, “I wish the lines had never been drawn in the sand. We should all embrace each other, stand together and understand that this could so easily happen to anybody. What is it that we have to do as a community to help our teenagers?”

The Farris family couldn’t be reached for comment.

Thrown together by the trial and now by shared visits to the jail, the families of the convicted youths have bonded, she said. Every Sunday, she leaves her Westlake home at 6 a.m. for visiting hours at the Los Angeles County Jail. Jason is in isolation, which means she has to get there early enough to place a request to see him. It’s competitive; only 36 prisoners are brought down from isolation for visits, starting at 10 a.m.

By noon, she’s usually sitting across from her eldest child, separated by a sheet of Plexiglass. They talk on the phone for 20 minutes. They can’t touch.

“I really miss that with Jason,” she said. She put her hand up flat against an imaginary window. “We go like this instead.”

Holland stops herself, thinking of another mother who misses her son.

“I know in my heart that Judie Farris must say, ‘At least you can talk to him, at least you can talk to your son.’ ”

But watching the effects on both her sons of a year in jail, with nothing else in sight, is still hard on her, she said.

“I’ve noticed the boys are getting in the habit of not looking in my eyes,” Holland said. “I have to tell Jason, ‘Look at me, I want to see your eyes.’ They are so isolated. He doesn’t even realize he isn’t looking at me.”

Sometimes she’ll swap phones with Brandon Hein’s father during visiting hours, chatting with Brandon for a few minutes. Jason’s friends don’t resent him, she said. They see each other in passing during family visits and occasionally exchange magazines or books.

“I feel so close to every one of those boys,” Holland said. “I don’t think any of them are angels. But they aren’t monsters.”

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Once a week she sends Jason packets of books. She picks them out at Borders, going for paperbacks--jail orders--of mystery novels and westerns. She’d like to send her son law books, but can’t find any softbound. Reading is about the only activity he has in jail besides letter writing. He calls her twice a week when he can. There often isn’t much to talk about, but she relishes the contact.

“I can’t figure out what in the world to say,” she said. “I ask, ‘What are you doing?’ But what do I think he’s doing? There isn’t much to do in there. The other day he said, ‘Mom, how’s your car?’ And I laughed and said, ‘Jason, my car is fine. But you don’t want to get off the phone. You just want to have that connection.’ ”

When she leaves Jason on Sundays, she drives to see Micah, housed separately in a juvenile facility.

“I can hug him,” she said. “We sit across from each other and I can lean over the table.”

For Holland, there is no walking away from her sons, no matter what they’ve done. If they are sentenced to life in prison, she said she will spend the rest of her life appealing the case if necessary. She would never downplay the worth of Jimmy Farris’ life, she said. But she plans to fight for her own children’s lives.

“How many years do you have to spend repenting for a life you have taken inadvertently?” she said. “I don’t know. But I think the rest of your life when you are 19 and there isn’t even a chance to get out, it’s cruel.”