The Court has heard Graham v. Florida earlier this morning, and it is hearing Sullivan v. Florida at this time. I'll break out coverage into three posts. This one will contain editorials, the next post OpEds, and the third post will contain oral argument previews. Transcripts of the oral arguments will be available here, later today.
"Imprisoning a Child for Life," is the title of an editorial in today's New York Times.
The United States could be the only nation in the world where a 13-year-old child can be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole, even for crimes that do not include murder. This grim distinction should trouble Americans deeply, as should all of the barbaric sentencing policies for children that this country embraces but that most of the world has abandoned.
The Supreme Court must keep the international standard in mind when it hears arguments on Monday in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida. The petitioners in both argue that sentencing children to life without the possibility of parole for a nonhomicide violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The court came down on the right side of this issue in 2005 when it ruled that children who commit crimes before the age of 18 should not be subject to the death penalty. The decision correctly pointed out that juveniles were less culpable because they lacked maturity, were vulnerable to peer pressure and had personalities that were still being formed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the practice of executing 16- and 17-year-olds violated the Eighth Amendment, conflicted with “evolving standards of decency” and isolated the United States from the rest of the world.
The Roper decision took scores of juveniles off death row. It also threw a spotlight onto state policies under which young juveniles were increasingly being tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult jails, often for nonviolent crimes.
The practice is even more troubling because it is arbitrary. Children who commit nonviolent crimes like theft and burglary are just as likely to be shipped off to adult courts as children who commit serious violent crimes. And the process is racially freighted, with black and Latino children more likely to be sent to adult courts than white children who commit comparable crimes.
"The editorial, "Locked away forever," appears in today's Washington Post.
Only 106 prisoners -- 77 of them in Florida -- have been given life without parole for offenses that did not involve a homicide or attempted homicide. Only two people -- including Mr. Sullivan -- have been handed this guaranteed life sentence for a non-homicide committed at age 13.
Most states have not consciously sanctioned imposition of mandatory life terms for juveniles. Instead, these sentences are the warped confluence of an increasing number of prosecutions in which juveniles are charged as adults and the increasing number of crimes that carry sentences of life without parole. The punishments fail to take into account the neurological, psychological and developmental differences that distinguish juveniles from mature adults.
Mr. Sullivan's lawyers make a compelling case that the frequent rejection of such draconian sentences by lawmakers, juries and judges shows "the country's radical repudiation of life without parole for children of this age." The Supreme Court cited similar trends and statistics in a 2007 case in which it ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in juvenile cases.
A brief filed in support of Mr. Sullivan by, among others, actor-director Charles S. Dutton and former Wyoming senator Alan K. Simpson, a Republican, makes a powerful case for giving juveniles at least a shot at freedom. Both of these men experienced serious trouble with the law in their early years: Mr. Dutton, who grew up in a housing project in Baltimore, spent time in juvenile facilities and later years in prison for stabbing a man to death and for assaulting a prison guard. Mr. Simpson recalls taking part in arson and other crimes. These men's ascents to the tops of their professions could not have been predicted by their often violent childhoods.
Juveniles who commit serious offenses should face serious penalties. A life sentence in some circumstances may be appropriate. But that sentence should carry with it the opportunity for a second chance.
On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times ran the editorial, "Cruel life in prison."
The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in 2005 that it is unconstitutionally cruel to execute people for crimes committed before they were 18, because youths lack the sense of responsibility that society requires of adults. Their personalities are not yet fixed; they are more susceptible to the negative influences of other people or events. Society's understandable demand for retribution is necessarily blunted when the perpetrator of a crime is a juvenile. Likewise, the threat of a stiff penalty cannot have the same deterrent effect on a youth as it does on an adult; young people have too little experience to fully grasp the consequences of their actions.
The court on Monday will hear arguments in the cases of two Floridians sentenced, in effect, to eventually die in prison because they lack even the slightest chance of release on parole. The same reasoning that bars execution for crimes committed in youth should also block such sentences of life without hope for young people, at the very least for those whose crimes fall short of murder.
Terrance Jamar Graham was 16 when he joined two others in a failed attempt to rob a restaurant; a year later, he was on probation when he participated in a home invasion robbery. His crimes were brutal; he was a repeat offender; and he deserved to be punished, to be imprisoned, and even, perhaps, to be sentenced to life. But not without a chance, in the future, for a court or parole board to review his growth and development and consider another chance at parole.
There are, to be sure, youths who mature earlier than others, just as there are adults who never fully mature. But there must be a line, and age 18 is the point at which society determines people are ready to sign contracts, marry without parental consent, serve on juries and be drafted into the military.
Society can and should countenance a hopeless existence in prison for adult perpetrators. But not for juveniles. The U.S. is, for now, the only nation that has not banned life in prison without parole for juvenile offenders, and more than 2,000 are serving such terms behind bars.
Earlier coverage of the issue begins with this post; next, the OpEd.
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