Patterico's Pontifications

5/17/2010

Supreme Court Rejects Life Without Parole for Some Juvenile Offenders

Filed under: Civil Liberties,Judiciary,Law — DRJ @ 3:00 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Via ScotusBlog, the Supreme Court today ruled that some juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to life without parole:

“In Graham v. Florida (08-7412), the Court reverses and remands, in an opinion again by Justice Kennedy. The vote is 6-3, with Justice Thomas dissenting, joined by Justice Scalia and in part by Justice Alito. Justice Alito files a separate dissenting opinion for himself. Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, concurs, even though all three join the majority opinion, and the Chief Justice concurs in the result alone.

* Holding: It is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile offender to life in prison without parole when the crime does not involve murder, given the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.

The Court dismisses Sullivan v. Florida (08-7621) as improvidently granted, in this per curiam opinion.”

The Sullivan and Graham cases were considered by their advocates as companion cases because both:

“… ask the Court to address whether the differences between children and adults that led the Court to strike down the death penalty for children also make permanent imprisonment a constitutionally impermissible punishment for a child.”

In 2005 in Roper vs Simmons, the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for offenders under 18. The Graham decision appears to continue the Court’s evolution in applying the “cruel and unusual punishment” standard to juvenile offenders.

— DRJ

9 Responses to “Supreme Court Rejects Life Without Parole for Some Juvenile Offenders”

  1. Good. A very small beginning but good.

    nk (db4a41)

  2. To explain, it’s way past overdue that we applied proportionality to non-death penalty cases, and the prison industry has been very successful in bribing legislatures from doing it.

    nk (db4a41)

  3. So let me see if I have this right. A 17 year old rapes and strangles his neighbors 8 year old daughter. He happens to live in a community where stuff like that is taken seriously and he is given a life term. The Supremes are OK with that. Right?

    Another 17 year old in the same town rapes and attempts to strangle his neighbors 8 year old daughter but the recalcitrant little b****h survives. She suffers permanent brain damage in addition to being traumatized for life. This 17 year old is eligible for parole at some time in the future because he can’t be given a life sentence. Right?

    O.K. I’m being snarky. This could never happen. And if it did the chances of it happening twice in the same town are so remote as to be inconceivable. Right.

    glenn (0af9f1)

  4. The dissent has the better of the argument in my opinion.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  5. Another 17 year old in the same town rapes and attempts to strangle his neighbors 8 year old daughter but the recalcitrant little b****h survives. She suffers permanent brain damage in addition to being traumatized for life. This 17 year old is eligible for parole at some time in the future because he can’t be given a life sentence. Right?

    The difference is that his victim is alive.

    Michael Ejercito (249c90)

  6. Michael E.
    Why should that difference make a difference?
    As my sainted mother used to say, “It’s the thought that counts, dear.”
    This guy, hypothetical or not, did what he did because he likes to do it and can’t think of a reason not to.
    That’s why we want him on ice, one way or another.

    Richard Aubrey (d94783)

  7. “Holding: It is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile offender to life in prison without parole when the crime does not involve murder, given the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.”

    Hogwash.

    Typical SCOTUS baloney. In one of the cases a juvenile, with a lengthy criminal record, took part in the robbery and rape of an elderly woman. There’s nothing unusual in a life sentence in a case like that (as for cruel…all punishments are cruel, by definition…so cruelty isn’t an issue, and that word shouldn’t even be in the amendment, because it’s meaningless, and only serves to confuse the issue).

    What the libby-wibbies on the court are really saying is is that juveniles ought not to be punished for crimes, because the lefty judges are a bunch of bleeding hearts and also because they all live in gated communities and have armed guards around themselves all the time at work, so that they’re well and truly insulated from having to suffer the consequences of turning loose violent criminals.

    Old ladies who live in bad neighborhoods don’t have guards and metal detectors at their front doors…judges and coutrooms do. Funny how that works, ain’t it?

    Anyway, the SCOTUS’ asinine holding has zip to do with the Constituion, and is entirely based on their own bizarre personal philosophies.

    And this is just law by judicial fiat…as per usual.

    Dave Surls (d47a90)

  8. glenn – Actually to complete the cycle of idiocy, in your hypothetical the 17 year old rapist can not be sentenced to life for his crime but according to another decision this week once he completes his sentence he can be held indefinitely because he is a sexual threat to children.

    Have Blue (854a6e)

  9. What amazes me (well, not really) is that five federal judges were willing to put their names on an opinion that says there’s a national consensus against ever sentencing a juvenile to life imprisonment for a nonhomicide offense, when the federal government and the overwhelming majority of states allow the practice.

    At this point, no one can pretend that Kennedy, Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, or Sotomayor have a single honest bone in their five ugly bodies. No matter what the state of the law is, no matter how many jurisdictions allow a certain practice, if these five judicial tyrants oppose that practice, they will find some way to say there’s a national consensus against the practice.

    I never thought Kennedy could write a worse-reasoned opinion than the one he wrote in Kennedy v. Louisiana, but now I see I’ve underestimated him.

    Alan (07ccb5)


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