The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 9 considered a case that will determine appropriate punishments for juveniles convicted of violent crimes. The overriding question: should teenagers be put away for life with no possibility of parole for crimes other than murder?
At issue are two Florida cases. One involves a male sentenced at age 17 for a parole violation – specifically participating in a home invasion. He had been previously convicted of armed robbery. Another case involves a 34-year-old inmate who has spent 23 years in prison on a rape conviction. Their guilt or innocence is not an issue for the court, though lawyers in the latter case are contending separately that their client is not guilty.
The laws of most jurisdictions provide for life sentences for many types of crimes, including those that do not result in a death, regardless of the age of the person convicted. The question is whether a life-without-parole sentence pronounced on a juvenile is inherently a violation of the Constitution’s provision against cruel and unusual punishment. The case potentially impacts a little more than 100 people serving life sentence today – 70 percent of those are in the state of Florida.
The New York Times, with typical wisdom and humility (which is to say, none), pronounced in a Nov. 9 editorial that because no other nation incarcerates juveniles to sentences of life without parole, that our policies are “barbaric” and “arbitrary.” It’s hard to make the case, as the Times attempts to without success, that the sentence inherently violate human-rights standards and the constitution. Prison is a dark, dangerous place, but it may be the only appropriate place where teens who commit heinous crimes and their victims can be safe. And because capital punishment isn’t part of the mix, it provides the opportunity for their redemption.
This case strikes us as one of those in which justice will be served no matter what the Court decides, because it will clear up a heretofore undefined boundary of the prohibition against cruel an unusual punishment.
