His 31-year sentence wiped away, Tacoma Halloween robber to address middle schoolers this week

Six years ago, Zyion Houston-Sconiers was on the streets of Tacoma with friends, robbing people at gunpoint, including kids with Halloween candy.

The crimes made headlines, as did the sentences Houston-Sconiers and one of his co-defendants Treson Lee Roberts, still kids themselves, received: 31 years for Houston-Sconiers and 26 years for Roberts.

Despite their ages — Houston-Sconiers was 17, Roberts 16 — both were charged as adults.

Today, Tacoma’s so-called “Halloween robbers” are free men, and in a remarkable turnaround, Houston-Sconiers on Wednesday will speak to Jason Lee Middle School students.

It’s a testament to evolving juvenile justice laws and a chance for Houston-Sconiers, a one-time “snotty nosed, Hilltop baby” to make good on a bad mistake.

Houston-Sconiers described the time between then and now as “a journey” — one that’s prepared him for what comes next.

But six years ago, any discussion of the immediate future that didn’t involve a prison cell seemed optimistic at best.

As troubling as the crimes were, for some observers the harsh sentences hardly felt like justice.

“I don’t defend what he did by any means,” attorney Barbara Corey, who represented Houston-Sconiers, said at the time. “I feel terrible. It just makes me sick.”

Corey wasn’t alone in her view. State Sen. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, described the sentences as “excessive,” pushing for a task force to review juvenile sentencing. My predecessor at The News Tribune, Peter Callaghan, wrote critically about the situation on numerous occasions.

A 2017 Washington State Supreme Court decision gave both Houston-Sconiers and Roberts the chance to receive new, reduced sentences.

Citing the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the long sentences Houston-Sconiers and Roberts received, the ruling was part of a broader directive giving Superior Court judges greater discretion when sentencing juveniles convicted as adults of criminal misconduct.

In retrospect, it was the correct decision.

And it’s why, this week, Houston-Sconiers, now 23, is preparing for an opportunity he certainly wouldn’t have been afforded from behind bars.

Released in May, Houston-Sconiers reached out to The News Tribune this month, hoping to put a human face on a story — and a high-profile crime — that plenty of people in Tacoma still remember.

Tacoma Public Schools spokeswoman Rae McNally described Houston-Sconiers’ upcoming appearance at Jason Lee as an opportunity to “give back to the community.”

“That night, it was the start of a whole new chapter in my life. It was a journey,” Houston-Sconiers recalled recently.

A one-time gang member, Houston-Sconiers described the 17 years that preceded Halloween 2012 as a time filled with abuse, multiple foster homes and too many schools to recount.

“I’m not using this as an excuse,” he insisted. “I don’t want pity. I’m just keeping it real.”

“I’m a human being, I’ve got genuine love for this world, and I inhabit this world just like any other man,” Houston-Sconiers continued. “Don’t look at us like these monsters. Look at us like we learned. We went through a life situation that a lot of people don’t end up going through.

“I was one of those guys. I had to bump my head to figure out.”

At the same time, Houston-Sconiers pushed back on the idea that his story is simply one of redemption and rehabilitation.

Just like life and the case that put him in the newspaper and prison, the truth, he said, is far more complicated.

While that stark honesty is likely to leave some observers uncomfortable — tying a bow on this story, after all, would make it far easier for the general public to digest — Houston-Sconiers said he’s not interested in fitting into a tidy narrative.

Instead, he said he wants to be true to himself, the life he’s led and where he hopes to go from here.

“You’ve got a kid and a gun. Those two things are dangerous, right? So absolutely I’m not going to sit here and say that there’s not some dysfunction there, there’s not a problem. I send my apologies out to anyone that affected. There’s definitely some (remorse) there,” he said.

“But that image that they painted of us was wrong. Because there was a lot more other stuff that was going on.”

Asked what he’ll tell kids at Jason Lee this week, Houston-Sconiers — who recently started a new job at a local lumber yard — said he’ll attempt to offer the kind of guidance and direction that was often lacking in his young life.

Along with the task of picking up the pieces of his life, it’s a goal he says he’s dedicated himself to — and one he expects to continue long after the coming holiday.

For this columnist, that’s where the real story is. Truthfully, I don’t know what the future holds for Houston-Sconiers, and — like any of us — I can’t guarantee he’ll never make another mistake. No one can.

What I do know is he’s paid the price for his crimes, and he deserves the opportunity to write the next chapter of his life.

“Whatever they want to know is definitely going to be transparent, honest and true,” he said of the message he’ll deliver on Halloween. “I want them to see that they can be somebody. You can do whatever you want to do.”

“You don’t have to be that person who’s just on the corner doing nothing,” he added.

“You can make a change, and it can be your change.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2018 at 5:51 PM.