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Sunday, November 08, 2009

Courts - "Justices Weigh Life in Prison for Youths Who Never Killed "

Adam Liptak reports today in the NY Times about tomorrow's upcoming oral argument before the SCOTUS in the case of Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida. It begins:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed. All are in the United States. And 77 of them are here in Florida.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear appeals from two such juvenile offenders: Joe Sullivan, who raped a woman when he was 13, and Terrance Graham, who committed armed burglary at 16. They claim that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment forbids sentencing them to die in prison for crimes other than homicide.

Outside the context of the death penalty, the Supreme Court has generally allowed states to decide for themselves what punishments fit what crimes. But the court barred the execution of juvenile offenders in 2005 by a vote of 5 to 4, saying that people under 18 are immature, irresponsible, susceptible to peer pressure and often capable of change.

A ruling extending that reasoning beyond capital cases “could be the Brown v. Board of Education of juvenile law,” said Paolo G. Annino, the director of the Children’s Advocacy Clinic at Florida State University’s law school. Judges, legislators and prosecutors in Florida agree that the state takes an exceptionally tough line on juvenile crime.

But they are deeply divided about when sentences of life without the possibility of release are warranted.

Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog posted a lengthy argument preveiw Friday, headed "Inquiring into the juvenile mind." It begins:
At 10 a.m., and again at 11 a.m., on Monday, the Supreme Court will examine the latest question on the punishment of juveniles who commit crimes — this time, crimes that do not lead to the death of the victim. Similar but not identical, the cases are Graham v. Florida, being argued at 10, and Sullivan v. Florida, at 11. * * * The briefs and other filings in the cases can be found on ScotusWiki, here and here.

Argument Preview. Four years after ending the death penalty for any minor who commits murder, the Supreme Court now is ready to analyze the next most severe penalty for a juvenile: life in prison without any chance of release, for a crime in which the victim is not killed. The issue will be examined in cases involving teenagers who were 13 and 17 at the time of their crimes — the 13-year-old convicted of sexual battery, the other youth convicted at age 17 of probation violation following a felony robbery when he was 16. Once again, the Court is inquiring into the degree of moral responsibility of minors, as well as into current moral standards, as factors in punishing youthful offenders.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 8, 2009 12:17 PM
Posted to Courts in general