A 40- to 80-year state prison sentence slapped on a Lancaster County man who was a teen when he went on a rape, burglary and robbery spree doesn't constitute cruel and unusual punishment, a state court has ruled.
The Superior Court reached that conclusion in denying an appeal by Christian Scott Thomas, who went on his rampage from May 2000 to January 2001, when he was 14 and 15 years old. One of his crimes involved a home break-in during which police said he raped a 92-year-old woman.
He initially was ordered to serve 66 to 150 years in prison, but a federal court overturned that penalty in 2012 after concluding it violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Thomas was then resentenced to the 40- to 80-year term.
In his latest appeal, Thomas, now 28, argued that his second sentence is still cruel and unusual because it "operates as the functional equivalent to life imprisonment because he will be released from jail at an 'extremely advanced age.'"
The Superior Court challenged his math, however.
State Judge Jack A. Panella wrote in his court's recent opinion that a prison sentence imposed on a juvenile criminal offender cannot be found to be cruel and unusual if it provides a "realistic opportunity for the juvenile to the released back into society during the remainder of his or her lifetime."
Thomas will have that "reasonable opportunity," Panella found, because he will be only 54 or 55 when his minimum sentence expires.