In 2004 Cyntoia Brown, a 16 year old girl, was arrested and sentenced to life after murdering a man that hired her as a prostitute.
She’s not eligible for parole until she is 69 years old. Nearly 13 years after the murder Cyntoia’s story has gone viral in social media. Many public figures have expressed how they feel about her case such as Rihanna, Lebron James, Snoop Dog, and Cara Delevingne.
Kim Kardashian even hired her lawyers to help Cyntoia and review her case. The hashtag #FreeCyntoiaBrown has been surfacing and and bringing more awareness to her case however not everybody agrees with this hashtag. A Lot of people would argue that Cyntoia committed a crime and should be penalised for it .
While others argue that since she wasn’t an adult she wasn’t supposed to be tried as an adult and some believe that trying her as an adult was unconstitutional. Cyntoia had a rough upbringing. She was conceived when her mother was only 16 and then given up for adoption. Brown’s mother was a heavy drinker during the first 8 months of her pregnancy then during the last month her mother was introduced to crack cocaine. As a result Brown was born with signs of fetal alcohol syndrome which slowed down her brain development. Moreover her mother’s side of the family was packed with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorders, depression and many suicides. More than 5 of Browns biological family members died from suicide.
Furthermore, it has been proven that years 0 to 3 are the years that shape a shape to become how they will become in the future and it is during this time frame that Cyntoia was being moved from foster home to foster home. From being attached to one family then being separated again. This lead to her growing up with a personality disorder and she viewed everybody in her life as someone that will eventually turn their back on her. So trying Cyntoia as an adult is not justified not only because she was only 16 but because she has a history of mental diseases that drove her to murdering someone. Not only did she grow up with a few mental issues but she was repeatedly abused by her adoptive father. Which lead to her running away.
That’s when she got involved with a pimp ,” Kut-Throat”, where she was sexually and physically abused. Brown said “ He would explain to me that some people were born whores, and that I was one, and I was a slut, and nobody’d want me but him, and the best thing I could do was just learn to be a good whore” and that’s when she began prostituting. To say that Brown deserved to be sentenced first degree murder at only 16 years old was crazy. First degree murder would mean that Brown had intended to commit a murder. Brown did not have intentions of killing anybody she was solely trying to get money. She just happened to get paranoid on the scene and panicked.
It is also silly the fact that her case is just now coming to light. Thirteen years ago is when this young woman suffered, thirteen years ago is when she needed help, thirteen years ago was when she needed the support but now she is a full blown adult. In present time she has gotten her G. E. D.
, an associate degree and is on the rhode to earning a bachelors of arts degree all while in jail. However, she is still not eligible for parole and that’s what this movement is about. Hashtag Free Cyntoia Brown is not a movement against murderers it’s a movement against throwing away a life that barely started. Between childhood and adulthood, nearly everybody makes mistakes. Some big, some small. However, should a teenagers life be thrown away because of a mistake they made? Is it justified to give a life sentence to a child whose life barely started? The constitution is basically telling Cyntoia Brown that her life was wasteful and worth nothing.
However, in her experience in jail she has proved to people that she can accomplish many things. Now it’s just up to the jury and the public to grant her her long awaited justice.
