Supreme Court to Consider Juvenile Life Sentences

by Matt Kelley · 2009-05-05 07:53:00 UTC
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Could the days life without parole sentences for minors be numbered?

The Supreme Court said yesterday it would hear the cases of two young Florida men serving the rest of their lives for crimes they allegedly committed when they were 13 and 17. Joe Sullivan in Florida (above) is one of just eight people in the world sentenced to die in prison for a crime committed when they were 13 - and all eight of are in the United States. Add to this extremely harsh - and extremely rare - punishment the fact that Sullivan was convicted on questionable evidence and says he's innocent of the crime.

I first wrote about Sullivan's case in February, when his attorney Bryan Stevenson told the New York Times:“I don’t think it’s possible to say that a 13-year-old will never change and that life without parole is an appropriate punishment.”

If our prison system wants to live up to its claim of focusing on rehabilitation, we shouldn't give up on 13-year-olds - even if they were completely guilty of a vicious murder. Children at this age are impressionable, they make mistakes, their brains aren't fully developed. There's no reason to put them away forever.

The court said it would hear Sullivan's case next term, as well as another - Terrance Jamar Graham v. Florida - in which Graham was convicted of involvement in a series of armed robberies when he was 17.

Attorneys in both cases are asking to court to apply the same standards it found in Roper v. Simmons in 2005 in which the justices ruled that "evolving standards of decency" meant the juvenile death penalty should be considered cruel and unusual punishment, and therefore unconstitutional.

There are currently 2,225 people in U.S. prisons in 45 states for crimes committed when they were under 18, and the U.S. is nearly alone in sentencing kids to die in prison. In 2006, the U.S. was the only country to vote against a proclamation condemning juvenile LWOP - 186 counties voted for it. Human Rights Watch has found that only three other countries have prisoners who were sentenced to life without parole as juveniles.

The court has an opportunity to end our unusually harsh punishment of children and take a step on the path toward rehabilitation. I hope it happens.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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