The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that sentencing a Jacksonville teenager to life in prison without the possibility of parole when he didn’t kill anyone amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The 5-4 vote ends a decade where juveniles who committed violent crimes were treated by the courts as beyond redemption and sent to prison for life.

The Court ruled that Duval County Circuit Court Judge Lance Day violated the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment when he sentenced 17-year-old Terrance Graham to life without parole for armed burglary. Graham was 16 years of age and on probation for armed home invasion when he committed the crime.

The ruling will trigger the re-sentencing and possibly the release of 111 people in the United States sentenced as to life in prison as juveniles. Seventy-seven of those cases are in Florida.
— Susan Eastman

This entry was posted on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.