As noted yesterday, the transcripts of Sullivan v. Graham and Sullivan v. Florida are available via the Court's website. Scotus Wiki files for Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida contain all briefing.
Lyle Denniston expanded his initial SCOTUS Blog post, "Analysis: The Chief leads on juvenile sentences?"
The Sullivan case, argued section, brought some of the same exchanges, but was dominated by questions of whether the Court had jurisdiction to hear the case. Justice Ginsburg commented very early to Joe Sullivan’s lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, that “before you get to the particulars of this case, there is a serious question” about whether Florida law barred the challenge to the no-release sentence.
Several Justices said that, if the Court were to decide that the Roper decision was a death penalty-only case and thus did not apply to life sentences, then Florida’s “procedural bar” did, in fact, prevent Sullivan from making his challenge in 2007 to a sentence he received in 1989. “You’re out of court” if Roper does not apply, Justice Scalia said.
When Stevenson did get a chance to discuss the merits, he sought to persuade the Court that, whatever line it might draw against life-without-parole for minors, it definitely should rule it out for 13-year-olds. Once again, though, he encountered the Chief Justice’s apparent agenda. “If we require consideration of age under the Eighth Amendment,” Roberts commented, “we avoid all these line-drawing problems.”
Makar, making a return appearance in the Sullivan case, had to spend much of his time trying to clear up confusion about how often the life-without-parole sentence is given to juvenile offenders, in Florida and elsewhere. With Justice Stephen G. Breyer leading the questioning of the state’s lawyer, the difficulties of drawing age lines that would properly reflect the capacity for “moral responsibility” became more evident.
Breyer did draw from Makar the minimal concession that, if the Court were to rule in the Graham case that Roper did apply to no-release sentences, and that were made retroactive, then Sullivan would be allowed — under Florida law — to file a new challenge to his sentence.
"Justices Consider the Role of Age in Life Sentences," is the title of Adam Liptak's report for the New York Times.
A majority of the justices at two Supreme Court arguments on Monday seemed inclined to find a way to take account of the age of young offenders in deciding whether they may be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
But there was disagreement among the justices about where to draw various lines and, indeed, over whether line-drawing or case-by-case determination was the right approach.
A lawyer for Joe Sullivan, who was sentenced to life without parole for raping a 72-year-old woman when he was 13, asked the court to say that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment forbids such sentences for youths under the age of 14 convicted of any crime, including murder.
“To say to any child of 13 that you are only fit to die in prison is cruel,” said Bryan Stevenson, Mr. Sullivan’s lawyer. “It can’t be reconciled with what we know about the nature of children.”
In a separate argument in a second case, a lawyer for Terrance Graham, sentenced to life for armed burglary at 16 and a probation violation at 17, said the line should be set at 18 but only for crimes that did not involve a killing.
The court has drawn bright lines in its capital jurisprudence, forbidding the execution of offenders under 18 in 2005 in Roper v. Simmons and of people of any age for crimes against individuals other than murder last year in Kennedy v. Louisiana. The question at Monday’s arguments was whether the logic of those decisions should be extended to cases outside the area of the death penalty.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested a compromise approach that did not involve categorical distinctions but would instead require consideration of the offender’s age in deciding whether the sentence was proportional to the crime case by case.
“We know from Roper that death is different, and we know from Roper that juveniles are different,” the chief justice said. “Wouldn’t it make sense to incorporate the consideration of the juvenile status into the proportionality review?”
Outside the context of the death penalty, the court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence has not taken the offender’s age into consideration in deciding whether a sentence is proportional to the crime. Requiring sentencing judges to add age to the sentencing calculus would presumably make a difference in some but not all cases.
Bryan S. Gowdy, a lawyer for Mr. Graham, said a case-by-case approach at the time of sentencing cannot work because juveniles are still unformed.
“At that age we cannot make a determination about whether or not the adolescent will or will not reform,” Mr. Gowdy said.
The National Law Journal carries Marcia Coyle's, "Supreme Court Grapples With Constitutionality of Juvenile Sentences."
"The sentence is unequivocal and cruel because it rejects any hope that the adolescent can change," said Graham's counsel, Bryan Gowdy of Mills Creed & Gowdy in Jacksonville, Fla., in Graham v. Florida.
Gowdy urged the justices to announce a per se rule that juveniles under the age of 18 cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole. In the second argument, Sullivan v. Florida, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., sought to draw the line at age 14, but said he fully supported Gowdy's line as well.
Both lawyers relied heavily on the analysis in the Supreme Court's 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision striking down the death penalty for juvenile murderers. The majority in that case found that juveniles younger than 18 lacked the maturity and moral culpability of adults.
But Florida Solicitor General Scott Makar told the justices that "death is different." He warned that a "categorical rule" eliminating life in prison without parole would undermine Florida law. The state, he said, had enacted strong punishments for juvenile crimes in response to a serious problem. He also noted that many states have eliminated parole in their criminal justice systems.
"A categorical rule goes against the national trend and consensus," said Makar.
Several justices clearly had trouble with attempting to pinpoint at what age the punishment would violate the Constitution and at what point a juvenile sentenced to life in prison would become eligible for parole review.
"What makes us more culpable after our 18th birthday?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Gowdy.
"A line has to be drawn somewhere," responded Gowdy, adding that 18 is the age supported by social science studies of juvenile behavior and maturity.
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. told Gowdy, "You're making a per se argument that no matter how horrific the crimes, no matter if no remorse is shown, that person must be made eligible for parole?"
Gowdy said yes. "Life with parole gives some hope that later in time he may be released." Alito asked when parole must be considered if the high court were to ban the life without parole sentence. Gowdy said that should be left to the states.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. repeatedly pressed lawyers for the juveniles and the state on whether a better solution would be to declare that the Eighth Amendment required judges to consider the youth's age in sentencing and then whether the sentence was "proportional" for an offender of that age and for the particular crime.
"Why doesn't that seem more sensible?" asked Roberts. "It avoids all of the line-drawing."
But neither the lawyers for Graham and Sullivan nor for the state agreed with Roberts.
Stevenson said proportionality review has not worked well in cases involving children. Gowdy said a judgment cannot be made at sentencing whether a juvenile can be rehabilitated. That judgment must be made later, he said.
Florida's Makar argued that judges now consider the offender's youth in imposing life without parole. "Age does matter," he said.
Robert Barnes writes, "Life prison sentences for minors divide court," for the Washington Post.
Roberts suggested a finding that he said would be somewhere in the middle. Rather than having rigid rules based on age, he said it would be better to require judges to consider the defendant's age when imposing harsh sentences, and then having courts review whether they are disproportionate to the crime.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Roberts's idea would not solve the basic problem: that juveniles are still developing and are not fully culpable for their actions. Decisions about whether they have reformed can be made only later. The question is, "Has this person overcome those youthful disabilities?" she said.
Several justices seemed troubled by the patchwork of laws covering juveniles and an uneven distribution of those juveniles serving life without parole for non-homicides. Of 111 such juveniles nationwide, 77 of them are in Florida, with the rest spread across only six other states.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Makar on the minimum age at which a child in Florida could be subjected to the circumstances that could lead to a sentence of life without parole. He said there is no minimum.
"So a 5-year-old could be put away for life?" she asked.
"That is, theoretically," Makar answered. "We would hope that the system would not allow that."
Stevenson's client, Sullivan, is now 34, and the court spent much of its time in his case on Florida's argument that he was procedurally barred from bringing his claim so late. Stevenson argued that his challenge could come only after the court's decision in 2005, but even justices sympathetic to Sullivan's case questioned Stevenson on the point.
But if the court were to find for Graham that life without parole is unconstitutional for juveniles, thy agreed that would also give Sullivan a new claim.
"Supreme Court Weighs Life Sentences For Juveniles," is Nina Totenberg's NPR report.
Retribution versus the possibility of redemption were at the core of Supreme Court arguments Monday in two cases testing whether it is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without parole — for a crime that does not involve a death.
Florida leads the nation in sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole for non-homicide crimes. Nationally, of 111 such cases, 77 are in the Sunshine State.
So it is fitting that the cases both came from Florida. One involves a 13-year-old convicted of rape; the other, a 16-year-old convicted of armed robbery.
And:
Next up on the juvenile side of the argument was defense lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who contended that while drawing the line at 18 is preferable, drawing it at 14 is imperative.
Roberts observed that while the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst, life without parole is not reserved for the worst of the worst.
Lawyer Stevenson replied, "We think that with regard to non-homicides, life without parole occupies the same end-of-the-line status that the death penalty does with homicide."
Defending life in prison without parole in both cases Monday was Florida Solicitor General Makar. He argued that the court should not do anything to contradict what he called the national trend for tougher juvenile sentences and abolition of parole.
Roberts: "You're arguing for a categorical rule of your own that age should not be considered in sentencing."
Kennedy: "What is the state's interest in keeping the defendant in custody for the rest of his life if he has been rehabilitated at some point and there's no longer a real danger?"
Roberts wondered, "Which of these cases is worse?"
After some hemming and hawing, the state's lawyer said the rape was worse than the armed robbery.
Sotomayor then pointed to statistics showing that nationally, the median sentence for rape is 10 years. In light of that, she wondered why this rape by a 13-year-old justifies life in prison without parole.
Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to sum up the court's dilemma: "As a general matter, human beings are uncertain about how much moral responsibility to assign to individuals in a particular category. Is it appropriate to sentence someone to life in prison without parole at the age of 10? No. 11? No. 17? Yeah, maybe. We are in an area of ambiguity, what justifies taking a person's whole life away."
The Christian Science Monitor carries Warren Richey's, "At Supreme Court, no accord over life sentences for juveniles."
Colorado and Texas have rewritten their juvenile sentencing laws to end life-without-parole punishment for those under 18. Instead, the maximum juvenile sentence in both states is now 40 years in prison followed by an assessment for potential parole.
Earlier coverage begins with this post.
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