The United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument Monday in two cases from Florida involving juveniles convicted of violent crimes in adult court and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole (LWOP). At issue in Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida is whether an LWOP sentence for offenders under 18 is a violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation has joined the case to encourage a decision announcing that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit states from sentencing violent criminals who committed their crimes before their 18th birthday to LWOP.
“The defendants and their supporters in these cases are trying to impose their own policy preferences on the country through judicial activism,” said Kent Scheidegger, the Foundation’s Legal Director. “With very rare exceptions, the Constitution leaves decisions about how states sentence criminals to the voters and their legislators,” he added.
The defendants, Joe Sullivan and Terrance Graham are habitual criminals convicted of violent crimes.
In 1989, Joe Sullivan, then age 13, along with two accomplices, broke into the Pensacola home of an elderly woman, while she was out, to steal her valuables. Later the same day, Sullivan and an accomplice returned to the house. As the accomplice distracted the woman at the front door, Sullivan entered through another door, threw a slip over her head, and threatened to kill her. He then took her to a bedroom. In the bedroom Sullivan removed the woman’s clothes and brutally beat and raped her. The victim underwent surgery due to injuries resulting from the rape. Sullivan had previously been convicted of 17 other crimes, including several felonies. His record also included assaults on other juveniles while serving time for prior convictions.
Evidence introduced at trial included Sullivan’s palmprint in the victim’s bedroom, testimony from a neighbor who saw Sullivan on the victim’s porch moments before the assault, and from a police officer responding to the neighbor’s call who saw Sullivan running from the house. The victim was also able to identify Sullivan’s voice. Sullivan was subsequently convicted of two counts of sexual battery and two counts of burglary and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Eleven years after his conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, Sullivan applied for postconviction relief. In his 2007 petition, Sullivan cited the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, which announced that sentencing a murderer under 18 to death violated the Eighth Amendment. He claimed this decision applied retroactively to his case to prohibit criminal defendants under 18 from receiving LWOP for crimes other than murder. The trial court rejected that claim and the state appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision.
On December 2, 2004, Terrance Graham was on probation for robbery and assault and one month away from his 18th birthday. That evening he and two other armed males forced their way into the Jacksonville home of Carlos Rodriguez. While Graham held Rodriguez at gunpoint, he gave orders to his accomplices to ransack the house. They found a guest in the bathroom and brought him into the room where Rodriguez was being held and took his crucifix and gold chain. Graham and his accomplices then put the two victims in a closet, blocked the door with furniture and left. The trio then allegedly committed another robbery which resulted in one of Graham’s accomplices being shot. Graham then drove to a hospital and dropped off both accomplices. While leaving the parking lot, Graham nearly collided with a police detective’s car and led the detective on a high speed chase. He was arrested after crashing into a telephone pole. Officers found three handguns in the car.
At the police station, Graham waived his Miranda rights. A police detective asked him, “aside from the two robberies tonight, how many more were you involved in?” Graham answered, “two or three before tonight.”
In court, the prosecution introduced Graham’s incriminating statements and testimony from Rodriguez identifying Graham as the leader in the robbery. The stolen crucifix found on one of the accomplices and statements from both accomplices admitting their participation in the robbery with Graham were also introduced. Graham testified that he knew nothing about the robberies or the guns found in his car. He denied making incriminating statements to the police and claimed that he fled from police to avoid being caught violating the 10 p.m. probation curfew.
The court found Graham had committed the robbery and thereby violated the conditions of his probation. The sentencing judge noted that Graham had been given a lenient sentence initially and that many people had tried to help him turn his life around. After stating, “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 try to protect the community from your actions,” the judge sentenced Graham to life without parole.
Graham’s claim that his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment was rejected by the Florida Court of Appeal, and the state Supreme Court refused to disturb that holding.
Both Sullivan and Graham appealed the state court decisions in their cases to the United States Supreme Court. When the high court agreed to review the two cases, at least fifteen groups submitted amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs in support of the defendants’claim, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Amnesty International, the American Bar Association, and the Sentencing Project. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and Mental Health America also submitted a joint brief (APA Brief). The arguments assert that the Roper v. Simmons decision extends beyond the death penalty to include LWOP, which they characterize as a sentence “to die in prison.” The APA brief cites research which they conclude shows that the brains of those under 18 years old are too immature to be fully responsible for their actions and that violent behavior by those under 18 is unlikely to continue into adulthood.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, the National District Attorneys Association, sixteen members of the U. S. House of Representatives, the Center For Constitutional Jurisprudence and the nineteen states of Louisiana, Alabama, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming have submitted argument in support of state authority to impose LWOP for the worst juvenile criminals.
With regard to the Sullivan case, the Foundation notes that Florida law requires a defendant to submit his postconviction claims within two years of the final judgment on the direct appeal. Sullivan’s current appeal was filed over a decade after that judgment and is therefore defaulted. Sullivan’s claim that the Roper v. Simmons decision applies retroactively to his case and overrides the state’s time limit is not supported by Supreme Court precedent or the Roper decision itself, which is focused solely on the death penalty. The Foundation is asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
The argument that the Roper decision extends to prohibit juvenile LWOP is based on the proposition that those under 18 are uniformly immature and no sound judgments can be made about their future behavior. The Foundation argues that the research cited in the APA Brief provides no support for that proposition and that their research actually contradicts it. The Foundation also cites other research showing that maturity levels and the patterns of violent behavior among juveniles are not uniform.
“Some people who commit violent crimes prior to their 18th birthday continue to commit violent crimes into adulthood. States which identify and confine the worst of these predators are protecting innocent people from becoming victims of crime,” said Scheidegger.
