Academic

Supreme Court Bars Juvenile LWOP In Non-Homicides; Thomas Gives Tentative OK To Executing First Graders

By Dan Filler

In another razor-thin 5-4 decision (with Roberts concurring in the outcome) about kids who commit serious crimes, the Supreme Court struck down a sentence of life without parole (LWOP) in the case of a Florida boy - Terrance Graham - who'd had his probation revoked and had been resentenced to LWOP for a crime he'd committed at 16.  The decision is here.  As in the death penalty context, the fifth vote came from Justice Kennedy.   It strikes me that these decisions are absolutely right given the real capacities of kids and their limited moral culpability: research clearly shows that most people under 18 are different from adults in the ways they process information and make decisions.  And perhaps more importantly, we're not particularly good at figuring out which individuals 18 year olds are more advanced in these things, and thus more similar to adults. 

Perhaps most intriguing about the case was Justice Thomas's implication - flagged and flogged by Justice Stevens in concurrence - that the Consitution would allow executions of young children. Wrote Stevens:

While JUSTICE THOMAS would apparently not rule out a death sentence for a $50 theft by a 7-year-old, see post, at 4, 10, n. 3, the Court wisely rejects his static approach to the law. Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 17, 2010 (boomark / email).