Ashley Jones

Ashley Jones was a fourteen-year-old sentenced to life without parole for killing two family members in circumstances connected to an older boyfriend’s attempt to help her escape her family. Her case appears in the account of efforts to challenge sentences that condemned children to die in prison. At Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, Jones followed legal decisions and the Equal Justice Initiative’s work; when Bryan Stevenson told her that her sentence might finally be challenged, she was thrilled.

Background and Sentence

The account identifies Jones as a fourteen-year-old convicted of killing two family members. It gives only a brief description of the circumstances: an older boyfriend tried to help her escape her family. It does not supply further details about the killings or her family history, so the emphasis rests on her age and the severity of the sentence imposed on her.

Correspondence and Interest in the Law

While still a teenager at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women, Jones began writing to Bryan Stevenson about legal decisions she had read in the newspaper. She did not ask him to represent her; her letters instead conveyed curiosity about the law and the work of the Equal Justice Initiative. She also sent notes congratulating Stevenson and the organization whenever they won a death-penalty appeal. The correspondence shows her taking an active interest in legal work from within prison, rather than appearing only as the subject of a case.

A Possible Challenge

When Stevenson and his colleagues began challenging sentences of life without parole imposed on children, he told Jones that they might be able to challenge hers. The possibility mattered to her: she was thrilled to hear that the sentence she had been serving since adolescence might be contested. The account establishes this as a prospect, not a completed result; it does not state here whether her sentence was later changed.