In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court of the United States found unconstitutional under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause a Florida law under which juvenile offenders could be be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime.
The defendant in question here is Terrance Jamar Graham (because, as you know, all criminals in legal opinions are required use their middle names), born to crack-addicted parents in 1987 and who at the age of 17 attempted to rob a Jacksonville barbecue restaurant with some friends, with one friend twice (non-fatally) striking the restaurant manager in the back of the head with a metal bar. Graham pleaded guilty to armed burglary and attempted armed robbery, writing a letter to the trial court saying “this is my first and last time getting in trouble,” and "I've decided to turn my life around," making "a promise to God and myself that if I get a second chance, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get to the [National Football League]." After his release from jail six months later, Graham was again arrested and convicted for a forcible home invasion robbery, holding a man at gunpoint while others searched his house for money. Explained the trial court judge in sentencing him to life without parole,
[I]f I can’t do anything to get you back on the right path, then I have to start focusing on the community and trying to protect the community from your actions. And, unfortunately, that is where we are today is I don’t see where I can do anything to help you any further. You’ve evidently decided this is the direction you’re going to take in life, and it’s unfortunate that you made that choice.
I have reviewed the statute. I don’t see where any further juvenile sanctions would be appropriate. I don’t see where any youthful offender sanctions would be appropriate. Given your escalating pattern of criminal conduct, it is apparent to the Court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try and protect the community from your actions.
According to the majority, the Cruel and Unusual test for non-inherently-barbaric punishments rests on the proportionality of the punishment to the crime, which in this case starts with a look at the national consensus as to such punishments:
Here, an examination of actual sentencing practices in jurisdictions where the sentence in question is permitted by statute discloses a consensus against its use. Although these statutory schemes contain no explicit prohibition on sentences of life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders, those sentences are most infrequent. According to a recent study, nationwide there are only 109 juvenile offenders serving sentences of life without parole for nonhomicide offenses.... adding the individuals counted by the study to those we have been able to locate independently, there are 129 juvenile nonhomicide offenders serving life without parole sentences. A significant majority of those, 77 in total, are serving sentences imposed in Florida. The other 52 are imprisoned in just 10 States—California, Delaware, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia—and in the federal system.
Moreover, as the Court observed in 2005 in outlawing the death penatly for juvenile offenders, minors are different:
Roper established that because juveniles have lessened culpability they are less deserving of the most severe punishments. As compared to adults, juveniles have a “‘lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility’ ”; they “are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure”; and their characters are “not as well formed.” These salient characteristics mean that “[i]t is difficult even for expert psychologists to differentiate between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Accordingly, “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.” A juvenile is not absolved of responsibility for his actions, but his transgression “is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.”
"Life without parole is an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile," the majority futher explained. "Under this sentence a juvenile offender will on average serve more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender. A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life without parole receive the same punishment in name only.... This reality cannot be ignored." Neither the desires for punishment nor retribution not deterrence nor incapacitation justified the punishment here, not so long as rehabilitation remained an option:
By denying the defendant the right to reenter the community, the State makes an irrevocable judgment about that person’s value and place in society. This judgment is not appropriate in light of a juvenile nonhomicide offender’s capacity for change and limited moral culpability. A State’s rejection of rehabilitation, moreover, goes beyond a mere expressive judgment. As one amicus notes, defendants serving life without parole sentences are often denied access to vocational training and other rehabilitative services that are available to other inmates
And, as such, the Court concluded:
This Court now holds that for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole. This clear line is necessary to prevent the possibility that life without parole sentences will be imposed on juvenile nonhomicide offenders who are not sufficiently culpable to merit that punishment. Because “[t]he age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes between childhood and adulthood,” those who were below that age when the offense was committed may not be sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide crime.
A State is not required to guarantee eventual freedom to a juvenile offender convicted of a nonhomicide crime. What the State must do, however, is give defendants like Graham some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. It is for the State, in the first instance, to explore the means and mechanisms for compliance. It bears emphasis, however, that while the Eighth Amendment forbids a State from imposing a life without parole sentence on a juvenile nonhomicide offender, it does not require the State to release that offender during his natural life. Those who commit truly horrifying crimes as juveniles may turn out to be irredeemable, and thus deserving of incarceration for the duration of their lives. The Eighth Amendment does not foreclose the possibility that persons convicted of nonhomicide crimes committed before adulthood will remain behind bars for life. It does forbid States from making the judgment at the outset that those offenders never will be fit to reenter society.
Oh, P.S.? The rest of the world agrees:
There is support for our conclusion in the fact that, in continuing 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.’"
Today we continue that longstanding practice in noting the global consensus against the sentencing practice in question. A recent study concluded that only 11 nations authorize life without parole for juvenile offenders under any circumstances; and only 2 of them, the United States and Israel, ever impose the punishment in practice.
The Chief Justice concurred in the judgment but not in its reasoning, holding that the sentence Graham received was disproportionate while writing against the Court's new categorical rule that no minor could ever be sentenced to life without parole:
The fact that Graham committed the crimes that he did proves that he was dangerous and deserved to be punished. But it does not establish that he was particularly dangerous—at least relative to the murderers and rapists for whom the sentence of life without parole is typically reserved. On the contrary, his lack of prior criminal convictions, his youth and immaturity, and the difficult circumstances of his upbringing noted by the majority all suggest that he was markedly less culpable than a typical adult who commits the same offenses....
So much for Graham. But what about Milagro Cunningham, a 17-year-old who beat and raped an 8-year-old girl before leaving her to die under 197 pounds of rock in a recycling bin in a remote landfill? Or Nathan Walker and Jakaris Taylor, the Florida juveniles who together with their friends gang-raped a woman and forced her to perform oral sex on her 12-year-old son? The fact that Graham cannot be sentenced to life without parole for his conduct says nothing whatever about these offenders, or others like them who commit nonhomicide crimes far more reprehensible than the conduct at issue here. The Court uses Graham’s case as a vehicle to proclaim a new constitutional rule—applicable well beyond the particular facts of Graham’s case—that a sentence of life without parole imposed on any juvenile for any nonhomicide offense is unconstitutional. This categorical conclusion is as unnecessary as it is unwise.
Justice Thomas, along with Justices Scalia and Alito, pen the lead dissent:
The Court holds today that it is “grossly disproportionate” and hence unconstitutional for any judge or jury to impose a sentence of life without parole on an offender less than 18 years old, unless he has committed a homicide. Although the text of the Constitution is silent regarding the permissibility of this sentencing practice, and although it would not have offended the standards that prevailed at the founding, the Court insists that the standards of American society have evolved such that the Constitution now requires its prohibition.
The news of this evolution will, I think, come as a surprise to the American people. Congress, the District of Columbia, and 37 States allow judges and juries to consider this sentencing practice in juvenile nonhomicide cases, and those judges and juries have decided to use it in the very worst cases they have encountered....
I am unwilling to assume that we, as members of this Court, are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens. Nothing in our training as judges qualifies us for that task, and nothing in Article III gives us that authority.
Eight [] States do not make life-without-parole sentences available for any nonhomicide offender, regardless of age. All remaining jurisdictions—the Federal Government, the other 37 States, and the District—authorize life-without-parole sentences for certain nonhomicide offenses, and authorize the imposition of such sentences on persons under 18. Only five States prohibit juvenile offenders from receiving a life-without-parole sentence that could be imposed on an adult convicted of the same crime.
No plausible claim of a consensus against this sentencing practice can be made in light of this overwhelming legislative evidence. The sole fact that federal law authorizes this practice singlehandedly refutes the claim that our Nation finds it morally repugnant. The additional reality that 37 out of 50 States (a supermajority of 74%) permit the practice makes the claim utterly implausible. Not only is there no consensus against this penalty, there is a clear legislative consensus in favor of its availability.
And, moreover:
The Court is quite willing to accept that a 17-year-old who pulls the trigger on a firearm can demonstrate sufficient depravity and irredeemability to be denied reentry into society, but insists that a 17-year-old who rapes an 8-year-old and leaves her for dead does not. Thus, the Court’s conclusion that life-without-parole sentences are “grossly disproportionate” for juvenile nonhomicide offenders in fact has very little to do with its view of juveniles, and much more to do with its perception that “defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are categorically less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment than are murderers.”
That the Court is willing to impose such an exacting constraint on democratic sentencing choices based on such an untestable philosophical conclusion is remarkable. The question of what acts are “deserving” of what punishments is bound so tightly with questions of morality and social conditions as to make it, almost by definition, a question for legislative resolution.
To which Justices Stevens, Ginsburg and Sotomayor reply via concurrence:
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas argues that today’s holding is not entirely consistent with the controlling opinions in [a series of earlier cases]. Given that “evolving standards of decency” have played a central role in our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence for at least a century, this argument suggests the dissenting opinions in those cases more accurately describe the law today than does Justice Thomas’ rigid interpretation of the Amendment. 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 to the law. Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so.
Interesting note from Justice Stevens while preparing to end his service to the Nation.