Applying Roper v. Simmons in Juvenile Transfer and Waiver Proceedings: A Legal and Neuroscientific Inquiry (by John Matthew Fabian) first published on June 4, 2010
Abstract [free]: "In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held the death penalty unconstitutional as applied to juveniles in Roper v. Simmons. The Court reasoned that juveniles were less criminally culpable than adults because they lack maturity, they are more vulnerable to peer influence, and their character is not as well formed as that of adults. Although Roper addressed the imposition of the ultimate punishment of death within the context of a juvenile’s moral blameworthiness for a crime of murder, this article considers the application of the Court’s reasoning in Roper to the issue of juvenile waiver. Specifically, the author asks the question whether Roper’s ultimate language distinguishing juveniles from adults in capital cases should apply to the conventional practice of their trial and sentencing as adults. Despite the fact that juvenile transfer is a less serious sanction than the death penalty, this inquiry confronts the traditional objective of the juvenile court system, a system of punishment that was founded on rehabilitation rather than retribution. The author questions whether the punitive objectives of deterrence and retribution are satisfied by juvenile waiver and whether the mitigating effect of adolescence negates the trial of youth as adults." International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology XX(X) 1–24. © 2010 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0306624X10371283
Michigan Law Review - First Impressions - "Redemption Song: Graham v. Florida and the Evolving Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence" (By Robert Smith & G. Ben Cohen)
Introduction:
"In Graham v. Florida, [78 U.S.L.W. 4387 (2010)] the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits a sentence of life without parole ("LWOP") for a juvenile under eighteen who commits a non-homicide offense. For Terrance Graham, who committed home-invasion robbery at seventeen, the decision does not mean necessarily that he someday will leave the brick walls of Florida's Taylor Annex Correctional Institution. Unlike previous Eighth Amendment decisions, such as Roper v. Simmons, [543 U.S. 551 (2005)] where the Court barred the death penalty for juveniles, this new categorical rule does not translate into automatic relief for members of the exempted class: "A State need not guarantee the offender eventual release," Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, "but if it imposes a sentence of life it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term." Graham offers the possibility of redemption but not its guarantee.
Pragmatists are understandably skeptical [States that have enacted prohibitions on parole for child offenders could simply convert statutory prohibitions into de jure limitations, by allowing parole under the law, but denying it indefinitely. An opportunity for parole that might be realistic in Washington D.C. could be completely unattainable before parole boards in Florida, California and Louisiana.]. Yet beyond the narrow application of this rule to the small class of child-offenders, Graham contains the ingredients to be of transformative significance to the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. First, the opinion-employing a method of comparative analysis typically reserved for its capital cases-cements a proportionality requirement in the Court's non-capital Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Second, the Court uses for the first time a method of constitutional elucidation that draws two separate and seemingly parallel lines of jurisprudence together to articulate an independent constitutional principle. Third, the Court articulates the "possibility of redemption" as an essential consideration arising from evolving standards of decency. These three components-proportionality, constitutional triangulation, and the notion that people and their propensities are not static-suggest that Graham could have far greater significance in the life of the law than in the life of child defendants toiling, for instance, in the fields of the Florida Penitentiary,. [Graham is one of 72 juveniles sentenced to LWOP in Florida.]..."
SCOTUS Syllabus: Petitioner Graham was 16 when he committed armed burglary and another crime. Under a plea agreement, the Florida trial court sentenced Graham to probation and withheld adjudication of guilt. Subsequently, the trial court found that Graham had violated the terms of his probation by committing additional crimes. The trial court adjudicated Graham guilty of the earlier charges, revoked his probation, and sentenced him to life in prison for the burglary. Because Florida has abolished its parole system, the life sentence left Graham no possibility of release except executive clemency. He challenged his sentence under the Eighth Amendment ’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, but the State First District Court of Appeal affirmed.
Held: The [Eighth Amendment ’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments] Clause does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a non homicide crime. [emphasis added]
GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ( No. 08-7412 ) - Decision and Syllabus at LII / Legal Information Institute
GRAHAM v. FLORIDA ( No. 08-7412) - Background at ScotusWiki
http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Graham_v._Florida#Decision
