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The (unpreserved?) procedural issues in Graham juve LWOP case

By Douglas A. Berman

Thanks to SCOTUSblog's post here, everyone can now check out this cert petition in Graham v. Florida, the juve LWOP case that the Supreme Court decided to take up today (basics here).  Assuming the fact statement in the Grahampetition is accurate, the sentencing procedures used in the case are as troubling as is the substance of the LWOP sentence.  According to the cert petition, the defendant in Grahamwas given an LWOP sentence by a judge as a sentence for violating the terms of his probation(!) by committing an armed robbery a year after being placed on probation for a prior armed burglary.  As described, the procedures used to impose the LWOP sentence in Graham would seem to raise an array of possible Fifth and Sixth Amendment issues.  But the Graham cert petition only raises an Eighth Amendment claim (and other procedural claims may not have even been raised below), and thus it is unclear whether or how these procedural issues will be addressed as this case gets considered by the Justices...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 04, 2009 (boomark / email).