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High court reviews life term for youths

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The New York Times

Published: November 9, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed.

All are in the United States. And 77 of them are in Florida.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear appeals from two juvenile offenders. They are Joe Sullivan, who raped a woman when he was 13, and Terrance Graham, who committed armed burglary at 16. They claim that the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment forbids sentencing them to die in prison for crimes other than homicide.

Outside the context of the death penalty, the Supreme Court has generally allowed states to decide what punishments fit what crimes. But the court barred the execution of juvenile offenders in 2005 by a 5-4 vote, saying people under 18 are immature, irresponsible, susceptible to peer pressure and often capable of change.

The Supreme Court's latest look at how to punish young criminals flows directly from its decision to rule out the death penalty for those younger than 18. In that 2005 case, decided by a 5-4 vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion noted "the lesser culpability of the juvenile offender."

"From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed," Kennedy said.

Yet he said the possibility that for the worst crimes and worst offenders, "the punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is itself a severe sanction, in particular for a young person."

A ruling extending that reasoning beyond capital cases "could be the Brown v. Board of Education of juvenile law," said Paolo Annino, director of the Children's Advocacy Clinic at Florida State University College of Law. "We're just so far out from everyone else," Annino said. "These are 77 children who didn't kill anyone. We're unique, and we're out of step with the rest of the country."

Florida judges, legislators and prosecutors agree the state takes an tough line on juvenile crime. They are deeply divided about when sentences of life without the possibility of release are warranted.

"Sometimes a 15-year-old has a tremendous appreciation for right and wrong," said state Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, chairman of the House Criminal and Civil Justice Policy Council. "I think it would be wrong for the Supreme Court to say that it was patently illegal or improper to send a youthful offender to life without parole. At a certain point, juveniles cross the line, and they have to be treated as adults and punished as adults."

John Blue, a retired Florida appeals court judge, did not see it that way. "To lock them up forever seems a little barbaric to me," Blue said. "It just seems to me that if you are going to put someone who is 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 or 17 into prison, you ought to leave them some hope."

Several factors - legal, historical, cultural - help account for the disproportionate number of juvenile lifers in Florida.

Attorney General Bill McCollum explained the roots of the state's approach in the first paragraph of his brief in Graham's case.

"By the 1990s, violent juvenile crime rates had reached unprecedented high levels throughout the nation," McCollum wrote. "Florida's problem was particularly dire, compromising the safety of residents, visitors and international tourists, and threatening the state's bedrock tourism industry." Nine foreign tourists were killed over 11 months in 1992 and 1993, one of them by a 14-year-old.

Snyder put it this way: "Instead of the Sunshine State, it was the Gun-shine State."

In response, the state moved more juveniles into adult courts, increased sentences and eliminated parole for capital crimes.

Thomas Petersen, a semiretired judge in Miami who spent a decade hearing juvenile court cases, said the state's reaction was out of proportion to the problem and that it had lately failed to take account of changed circumstances.

"Back in the 1990s, there were dire predictions about teenage superpredators, particularly in Florida," Petersen said. "Florida, probably more than other places because of that rash of crimes, overreacted. It was a hysterical reaction.

"People still go around saying things have never been worse," he added. "But violent juvenile crime has gone down even as the juvenile population has grown."

The state's brief in Graham's case said juvenile crime fell 30 percent in the decade that ended in 2004. It attributed the drop to its tough approach to the problem.

Sullivan, now 34, had committed a string of crimes by the time he was charged with raping a 72-year-old woman after a burglary in 1989 in Pensacola.

Graham, now 22, was sentenced to a year in jail and three years of probation for a 2003 robbery of a barbecue restaurant in Jacksonville, during which an accomplice beat the manager with a steel bar. He was sentenced to life in 2005 for violating his probation by committing a home invasion robbery with two others when he was 17.

Concern over tourism drives Florida's crime policy, said Kathleen Heide, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida.

"We're at the more extreme level because our economy is so tied up with people coming here on vacation and feeling safe," Heide said. "And older people want to live out their retirements here and be safe."

Snyder said finding the right balance in addressing juvenile crime is difficult but should be left to the states.

"People do things at 16 and 17 that they wouldn't do at 37, but they spend a lifetime paying for it," he said. "But we have to create an environment where our children are safe and our elderly are safe."

LIFE TERMS

Florida is one of eight states with juvenile offenders serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes. Here's how they break down:

FLORIDA:...77

LOUISIANA:...17

CALIFORNIA: ...4

DELAWARE:... 1

IOWA:... 6

MISSISSIPPI:...2

NEBRASKA:... 1

SOUTH CAROLINA:... 1

Source: Human Rights Watch; Paolo Annino, David Rasmussen and Chelsea Boehme Rice from Florida State University, The New York Times

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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