Illinois Supreme Court rules in case involving life sentences for juvenile offenders
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The Illinois Supreme Court today ruled that state prison inmates serving life without parole for murders they committed as juveniles will be allowed to return to court for new sentencing hearings, giving approximately 100 convicted killers a shot at freedom. The ruling means that the inmates, some of whom were as young as 14 when they committed their crimes, will be allowed to present evidence – including their age at the time of the murders – to mitigate their responsibility and obtain a shorter sentence that would allow them to someday be set free.
Here are some excerpts from the opinion:
On October 9, 1990, Bryant Johnson and Keith Whitfield were fatally shot. On October 11, defendant was arrested and questioned regarding his role in the shootings. Born on August 4, 1976, defendant (Adolfo Davis) was 14 years old when he was arrested. In January 1991, following a discretionary transfer hearing under the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, the juvenile division of the circuit court of Cook County entered an order permitting defendant to be prosecuted (as an adult) under the criminal laws. ....
In March 1993, defendant was convicted of the first degree murders of Johnson and Whitfield, the attempted first degree murders of Melvin Harvey and Keith McGee, and home invasion. Defendant was sentenced in April 1993. Because defendant was found guilty of murdering more than one victim, section 5-8-1(a)(1)(c) of the Unified Code of Corrections (730 ILCS 5/5-8-1(a)(1)(c) (West 1992)) required the trial court to sentence defendant to a term of natural life imprisonment, for which parole is not available (730 ILCS 5/3-3-3(d) (West 1992)). Defendant was also sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment for each count of attempted first degree murder and home invasion, all sentences to run concurrently. On direct review, the appellate court affirmed defendant’s convictions and sentences.....
While defendant’s appeal was pending in the appellate court, the United States Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012), in which the Court held that “mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments.’ ” Id. at ___, 132 U.S. at 2460. Defendant filed a substitute brief in the appellate court incorporating Miller. The appellate court concluded that Miller applies retroactively on postconviction review. Consequently, the appellate court vacated in part the circuit court’s order denying leave to file a successive petition, vacated defendant’s sentence, and remanded for a new sentencing hearing...
The eighth amendment prohibits, inter alia, the imposition of “cruel and unusual punishments,” and applies to the States through the fourteenth amendment. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 560 (2005) (collecting cases). “The concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment.” Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 59 (2010). The eighth amendment’s ban on excessive sanctions flows from the basic principle that criminal punishment should be graduated and proportioned to both the offender and the offense. To determine whether a punishment is so disproportionate as to be “cruel and unusual,” a court must look beyond history to “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958)....
Roper, Graham, and Miller form a line of United States Supreme Court decisions that address how the eighth amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” applies to sentencing juveniles. The Court recognized three general differences between juveniles under 18 and adults. First, juveniles have a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility.
Second, juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure.
Third, the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult.
The Court concluded that these differences render the irresponsible conduct of juveniles not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult. Graham, 560 U.S. at 68; Roper, 543 U.S. at 569-70. In Roper, 543 U.S. at 578, the Court held: “The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposition of the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed.”
In Graham, 560 U.S. at 74, the Court held that the eighth amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole “for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.”
The Court further held that a “State need not guarantee the offender eventual release, 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.”
In Miller, the Court considered appeals by “two 14-year-old offenders *** convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In neither case did the sentencing authority have any discretion to impose a different punishment.” Miller, 567 U.S. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2460.
Relying on its earlier decisions in Roper and Graham, the Court in Miller recognized that “children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing” (id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2464), and that “in imposing a State’s harshest penalties, a sentencer misses too much if he treats every child as an adult.” Id. at ___, 132 S.Ct. at 2468.
The Court explained that a mandatory sentence precludes consideration of such mitigating circumstances as: the juvenile offender’s age and its attendant characteristics; the juvenile’s family and home environment and the circumstances of the offense, including the extent of the juvenile’s participation therein and the effect of any familial or peer pressure; the juvenile’s possible inability to interact with police officers or prosecutors, or incapacity to assist his or her own attorneys; and “the possibility of rehabilitation even when the circumstances most suggest it.” Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2468.
Based on the above, the Court held: “[A] judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles.
By requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes, the mandatory sentencing schemes before us violate this principle of proportionality, and so the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.” Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2475. Although the Court refused to declare categorically that a juvenile can never receive life imprisonment without parole for a homicide offense, the Court stated that “given all we have said in Roper, Graham, and this decision ***, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.” Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2469.....
Miller holds that a mandatory life sentence for a juvenile violates the eighth amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In the case at bar, defendant, a juvenile, was sentenced to a mandatory term of natural life without parole. Therefore, his sentence is invalid, and we uphold the appellate court’s vacatur thereof.
We observe that Miller does not invalidate the penalty of natural life without parole for multiple murderers, only its mandatory imposition on juveniles.
A minor may still be sentenced to natural life imprisonment without parole so long as the sentence is at the trial court’s discretion rather than mandatory.
We remand for a new sentencing hearing, where the trial court may consider all permissible sentences...
Defendant insists that, “even absent a categorical rule,” his sentence of life imprisonment without parole is unconstitutional “in light of his young age and individual circumstances.” However, defendant now will have the opportunity, for the first time, to present this exact argument at his new sentencing hearing. Therefore, we decline to address it.