What Monday’s Historic Juvenile LWOP Case Means

THE BROAD STROKES

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed down an historic ruling stating that juveniles may be sentenced to life in prison for a serious crime, but that there must be at least the possibility that the kid can eventually prove that he or she is worthy of parole—as long as the crime of which the juvenile was convicted is not murder.

The inmate is not guaranteed parole, only the chance of it. Here’s what Justice Kennedy wrote in the 5/4 majority opinion. (Justice Roberts kinda voted with the majority, but kinda didn’t and wrote his own opinion. More on that in a minute.)

“A State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to such an offender, but must impose a sentence that provides some meaningful opportunity for release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.

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THE ROUTE TO THE RULING

In explaining how the Supremes arrived at their decision in Graham v. Florida, Kennedy cited a variety of issues. As SCOTUS watchers assumed they would, the court looked to a 2005 decision—Roper v. Simmons—in which the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was cruel and unusual for juveniles.

Kennedy also referred to the fact that the US was alone in all the world in locking up juveniles for life, with no possible recourse or redemption:

There is support for our conclusion in the fact that, incontinuing to impose life without parole sentences on juveniles who did not commit homicide, the United States adheres to a sentencing practice rejected the world over. This observation does not control our decision. The judgments of other nations and the international community are not dispositive as to the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. But “‘[t]he climate of international opinion concerning the acceptability of a particular punishment’” is also “‘not irrelevant.’”

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THE ROBERTS FACTOR

Roberts’ concurring-ish but separate opinion was both thoughtful and interesting. He wrote that the sentence the actual defendant, Terrance Graham, had received was so severe given the nature of his crimes as to be cruel and unusual, thus violating the 8th Amendment. But Roberts stopped short of declaring the whole idea of juvenile LWOP for non-murderers to be against the Amendment. He did, however, conclude that the door may be left open for courts to evaluate other LWOP sentences on a case by case basis.

The NY Times’ Adam Liptak (whose Tuesday article on the case you should read anyway), describes Graham’s crimes:

The case involved Terrance Graham, who in 2003, at age 16, helped rob a Jacksonville restaurant, during which an accomplice beat the manager with a steel bar. Mr. Graham was sentenced to a year in jail and three years’ probation for that crime.

The next year, at 17, Mr. Graham and two 20-year-old accomplices committed a home invasion robbery. In 2005, a judge sentenced Mr. Graham to life for violating his probation.

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DON’T LEAVE IT UP TO THE COURTS

The other thing that Kennedy cited repeatedly in the majority opinion was the research by a Florida State University College of Law Professor and the school’s Public Interest Law Center, that showed that 109 non-murdering juveniles had received LWOP sentences, and that 77 of those kids were in Florida.

Given the wildly skewed application of the sentence from state to state, Kennedy and the four other majority justices concluded, the penalty was not handed down in any way resembling evenly—meaning, they concluded, that judges and juries could not be depended upon to determine what kid was capable of change, maturation and redemption, and what kid was simply so messed up, his or her crime so heinous, as to be a danger 20 or 30 years down the line.

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WHAT GRAHAM MEANS FOR THE FUTURE

There is an interesting implication built into the decision, in addition to its literal and immediate effect:

Graham now brings the court one very large step closer to declaring Life Without Parole to be cruel and unusual for any person who commits a crime when he or she is under the age of 18. The mystical exception laid out by the 2005 Roper case—-that the penalty of “death is different” hence cruel and unusual when applied to juveniles—has just been vaporized by the Graham ruling. Although the court went to great pains to say how much worse murder was in terms of “depravity,” the legal spell that only the sentence of “death is different” when considering 8th Amendment issues, is arguably effectively broken. If LWOP is cruel and unusual to apply to some kids, why not equally cruel and unusual to apply to the angry and disaffected 14-year-old who in one awful moment picks up an accessible gun and kills a schoolmate?

In his long and interesting dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas made it clear he saw this potential judicial slope:

Today’s decision eviscerates that distinction. “Death is different” no longer.

Thomas also objected to the court snatching away a penalty that a state legislature had decided it wanted to enact, that the court should not impose “its own independent moral views.”

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EVOLUTION OF DECENCY

In addition to the opinions written by Kennedy, Roberts and Thomas, Judge Stevens wrote his own concurring opinion, in which he went toe to toe with Thomas:

“….’evolving standards of decency’ have played a central role in our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence for at least a century,” he wrote, then slammed Thomas’s “rigid interpretation of the Amendment.”

Stevens wrote:

Society changes. Knowledge accumulates. We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes. Punishments that did not seem cruel and unusual at one time may, in the light of reason and experience, be found cruel and unusual at a later time; unless we are to abandon the moral commitment embodied in the Eighth Amendment, proportionality review must never become effectively obsolete.

While JUSTICE THOMAS would apparently not rule out a death sentence for a $50 theft by a 7-year-old, the Court wisely rejects his static approach….

Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so.

Yep. One would hope.

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MORE READING

All the opinions on the ruling may be found here.

For further reading, I recommend:

Bill Otis, at the conservative law blog, Crime and Consequences says that the decision could pave the way for the court to eventually strike down the death penalty for adults. I think he’s right—for the reasons he cites and others.

David Savage has a nice long piece in the LA Times.

Doug Berman at Sentencing, Law and Policy has written lots of good stuff. More than I can summarize here.

Scott Hensen at Grits for Breakfast notes that Texas was ahead of the SCOTUS curve by outlawing LWOP for kids a full year ago.

(For the record, Alaska, Colorado, Montana and Kentucky and Kansas have also done away with juvenile LWOP.)

The New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle all have editorials favoring the ruling.

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Photo: Terrance Graham on left, Joe Sullivan on right, both Florida juvenile LWOP cases in which there was no murder..