Juvenile Life Sentencing Update

Aside from death penalty cases, a USA Today article this morning says, justices of the Supreme Court have never before found a penalty crossed the cruel-and-unusual punishment line. That may have changed this morning.

"Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than murder, and there are just over 100 prison inmates in the United States serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences," the article says. Florida reportedly has more than 70% of that total, including Terrence Graham and Joe Sullivan, whose cases were before the Supreme Court just before noon.

The case is saying to flow directly from the Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 to rule out the death penalty for anyone younger than 18. There the Court said, "When a juvenile commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity. While drawing the line at 18 is subject to the objections always raised against categorical rules, that is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood and the age at which the line for death eligibility ought to rest."

Lyle Denniston at ScotusBlog, however, points out that "The Supreme Court has said repeatedly, as it decided death-penalty cases (often putting limits on such sentences, or ruling them out altogether in some situations), that ‘death is different,’ and that perception has led to a complex jurisprudence of capital punishment, including a flat ban on that penalty for some specific crimes (rape, for example) and some individuals in a specific group (minors and mentally impaired individuals). The Court, however, has not yet constructed a full constitutional guidebook for long prison sentences, although it has settled on one principle: a sentence for a term of years in prison will be struck down if it is 'grossly disproportionate' to the crime, judged on a case-by-case, rather than across-the-board, basis."

While similar, the cases are not identical, and the Court has decided to hear them separately.

See our previous posts (Here) and (Here), with much more on ScotusBlog (Here)

Graham’s Petition for certiorari
Sullivan’s Petition for certiorari