Through the decades, I’ve sat in many courtrooms watching teary-eyed families stand before judges to beg for mercy on behalf of a convicted defendant.
Often, it’s a mom or grandmother telling the judge that the person to be sentenced is a good person, that he’s never gotten a break, or his home life was a mess, or they were poor, or a parent was dead, on drugs or in prison.
In May, the parents of 20-year-old Bruno Cua will likely be in a federal courtroom in Washington pleading to a judge to show their son mercy. Cua, who was 18 when arrested, is the youngest of the 1,000 defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. He was convicted last week and faces years in prison for shoving a Capitol cop and then making his way to the Senate floor.
