8th Amendment - Tried As Adults

By MH
September 08, 2009, 11:25AM
On November 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments is violated when a juvenile is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a crime other than murder.


The issue before the nation's highest court is framed by two cases originating in Florida.

In one, Joe Harris Sullivan received such a sentence when he was 13 years of age upon his conviction for rape.

In the second case, Terrence Jamar Graham received the same sentence at 17 years of age after he had violated his probation in connection with an armed robbery conviction.

In its 2005 landmark decision in Roper vs. Simmons, the court held that executing juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment in that it was inconsistent with "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society."

To support that conclusion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, noted that 30 states had already abolished the death penalty for juveniles while an additional 20 states utilized it very sparingly.

Kennedy also underscored the fact that the death penalty has traditionally been reserved only for those whose extreme culpability makes them "the most deserving of execution."

Juveniles can never fall within this category, Kennedy reasoned, because of three critical differences between them and adults.

Citing language from an earlier case that had invalidated the death penalty for younger juveniles, Kennedy declared that the immaturity of juveniles in general and their susceptibility to misbehavior means that "their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult."

Kennedy next stated that juveniles' vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate surroundings entitled them to a greater claim than adults to be forgiven for succumbing to negative influences in their environment.

Finally, he noted that juveniles' ongoing struggle with identity issues militates against concluding that even the most heinous crime committed by them is evidence of an irretrievably depraved character.

Given these diminished capacities of juveniles, neither of the two reasons generally offered for justifying capital punishment - exacting justice and deterrence - are furthered by its imposition on them.




INVALID CRITICISM


While conservatives have criticized the holding in Roper as being driven by reliance on the laws of other countries, this is simply not true.

In fact, although Kennedy noted that the United States was the only country in the world that continued to authorize executing juveniles, he specifically reaffirmed the court's fidelity to the United States Constitution.

International unanimity against the practice only confirmed, he said, the court's conclusion that the death penalty is widely perceived as a disproportionate punishment for juveniles.

The resolution of the two Florida cases will depend on whether the court is ready to extend its reasoning in the Roper decision to those juveniles sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in non-capital cases.

Numerous influential organizations, including the American Bar Association and the American Psychiatric Association, have filed amicus briefs asking the court to do precisely that.

A 2005 study by Human Rights Watch found that 2,225 juveniles were serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole. Last month, the organization asserted that the actual number now exceeds that.

Though sequestered deep inside adult prisons, they constitute the most visible, nauseating proof of the barbaric manner in which the United States continues to treat accused children.

As has been so often the case with this ideologically divided Supreme Court, its ruling in the two Florida cases is going to depend on the vote of Justice Kennedy, the lone moderate on the bench.

On the plus side is Kennedy's robust reliance on the psychological differences between juveniles and adults in voting to strike down the death penalty for juveniles in the Roper case.

These very differences, even more persuasively reaffirmed in the ensuing four years, suggest that he will be sympathetic to the two young petitioners in the Florida cases.

Kennedy might even be persuaded to opine that life imprisonment without parole is unconstitutional for all juveniles, even those convicted of murder.

On the other hand, Kennedy previously voted in favor of the death penalty for older juveniles in a 1989 decision before changing his mind six years later in the Roper case.

So he may not be ready to extend the Roper rationale to instances of juveniles serving sentences of life without parole.

Given Kennedy's evolution on juvenile justice, it's also conceivable that he might vote to outlaw these sentences for younger teen-agers, but uphold them for older ones.

In such a scenario, Sullivan would win while Graham would lose.

Sadly, this country is light years away from recognizing that no child should ever be tried or imprisoned as an adult under any circumstances.

Hence, juvenile rights advocates can only hope that the Supreme Court uses the Florida cases to introduce another sliver of sanity into a legal field ruthlessly plundered by callous legislators, politically ambitious, heartless prosecutors and a continuingly apathetic public.