Stepsisters of Rick Ennis push for change to age limit to be charged as an adult in Alabama | Local News

On April 14, 2022, at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika, Rick Ennis was found guilty of capital murder burglary and capital murder kidnapping in connection to Slesinski’s disappearance in June 2006. Her body was never found.

The cold case was opened in 2016, and Ennis was arrested in Virginia and charged with capital murder in 2018.

Because Slesinski’s mother Arlene told the judge she did not want to pursue the death penalty for Ennis, he received life in prison without parole.

Since his conviction, three of his stepsisters released a statement to media revealing that when Ennis was 12 years old he murdered his mother and stepfather and was released from the juvenile system at age 21.

Because he was a juvenile, these records were sealed.

Angela Flowers, 48, and her sisters Donna Furr and Tina Sexton have been vocal about calling for a change to the Alabama law requiring a person to be at least 14 to be charged as an adult.

“I believe this from the depth of my heart that had he been tried as an adult, because of the circumstances and the murders that he committed in 1993, he would not have been on the street to kill Lori Ann Slesinski,” Flowers said.

In 1993, according to a Montgomery Advertiser story written by Greg Jaffe on June 23 of that year, Ennis admitted in court “that he killed his mother and stepfather March 3 in a north Montgomery mobile home park.”

An earlier story quoted Capt. Wyatt Gantt, a police spokesman, as saying that the mother, 40, was beaten with a baseball bat and shot with a .22-caliber rifle, and the stepfather, 39, was shot with a 16-gauge shotgun.

Flowers was 19 and in the Navy when the killings occurred. Her father and stepmother had been married for less than a year, and Flowers said she’d only met Rick Ennis once, at her grandfather’s funeral.

“I was just in disbelief,” Flowers said. “Nobody believes that a 12-year-old is going to do that kind of thing, especially in the early ’90s. That was unheard of.

“It seems to be more commonplace in society today than it ever was then.”

Flowers said she pursued a career in law enforcement because of the violent crime against her father. She currently works at a sheriff’s department in Florida.

Going through the legal process after the murder, she said the Montgomery Police Department and the district attorney did a great job putting all the evidence together and doing everything they could to provide her and her family with justice.

“I personally made the choice if I wasn’t willing to do that for somebody else, how can I ask them to do that?” she said. “So when I got out of the military, I became a law enforcement officer, and I’ve been one ever since.”

Flowers said she would like for the law to be adjusted, and she pointed to a group called VOCAL – Victims of Crime and Leniency – that has been trying to get the law changed for many years.

“I don’t think it should be a specific age,” Flowers said. “I think it should be the totality of circumstances. All children mature differently, they have different experiences, they have different levels of education. It should be reviewed as a case-by-case basis and not a specific age limit.”

Scientists continue to conduct studies and collect data about the development of the juvenile brain.

Lee County District Attorney Jessica Ventiere, the lead prosecutor for the capital murder case against Ennis in 2022, said these studies examine when a child has the ability to form intent, when they have the ability to control impulses, when they start to have concrete ideas of right and wrong, and more. These studies continue to be debated today.

“I think that I would be hesitant to start making sweeping changes to the juvenile code when it comes to being treated as an adult because of the studies that talk about the underdevelopment of the brain of children, their impulse control and things of that nature,” Ventiere said.

While she said she’s seen some “truly horrific cases” come through involving juveniles, she said these are typically rare.

The Alabama law says that an individual must be at least 14 years old to be charged as an adult.

Ventiere said if an individual 14 or older is charged with an offense like murder, they are automatically transferred out of juvenile court and treated as an adult, but they have the option to receive a youthful offender status and other types of protections.

A youthful offender in the state of Alabama is classified as a person under the age of 21.

If an individual under the age of 14 commits a crime, there is no other alternative besides juvenile court, Ventiere said.

“I would just be very cautious when you’re dealing with juveniles because, really, under 14 is very young,” she said.

When asked if juveniles who commit a crime at a young age commonly become a repeat offender when they are older, Ventiere said she frequently sees juveniles who commit violent offenses either continue to commit crimes throughout their juvenile years or as an adult.

Ventiere said she hasn’t necessarily seen an increase or decrease in the number of juvenile-related crimes, but she said she thinks the crimes have become more violent over the past decade.

“The level of violence that’s used in executing those crimes when you’re dealing with juveniles has definitely increased,” she said.

Ventiere said if someone is convicted of murder, there are only two possible sentences: death or life in prison without parole.

A U.S. Supreme Court case from 2012, Evan Miller v. Alabama, raised the question of whether a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole is a violation of the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment.

Miller was 14 when he killed 52-year-old Cole Cannon in 2003 in Lawrence County, Ala. Miller and another teen stole from Cannon, beat him with a baseball bat and set his mobile home on fire. In 2016, in Lawrence County Circuit Court, Miller was given life with no parole, while his friend received life with parole. 

In 2012, with Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders.

“The court in that case said that juveniles who’ve been convicted of capital murder should be given the option of having a sentence of less than life without parole,” Ventiere said. “They are not eligible for the death penalty.”

The Supreme Court ruled that Miller and others who had been convicted of capital murder as juveniles must be resentenced. Since then, all juvenile cases in this category have come back for review.

Like Alabama, the majority of states have the minimum age a juvenile case can be transferred to adult court to be age 14. A few have set the minimum age as low as 12 while others have it set as high as 17, according to the Interstate Commission for Juveniles.

Some states have no minimum age or have different age limits depending on the severity of the crime.

The state of Idaho requires an individual to be at least 14 years old to be tried as an adult, but for certain offenses, including murder, rape and arson, there is no minimum age. Rhode Island, similarly, has no age limit if the charge is punishable by life imprisonment, and Maine has no minimum age for a bind over to adult court, according to the Interstate Commission for Juveniles.

“My predication for the future is greater protection for juveniles not less,” Ventiere said. “So even regardless of my own thoughts about the issue, I do not see a trend of making it a lower age.”