The League of Iowa Human & Civil Rights Agencies

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Supreme Court appeared split Monday along familiar ideological lines over whether the Constitution forbids locking up forever juveniles whose crimes fall short of homicide. Attorneys for two Florida men sentenced as teenagers to life in prison without parole argued that such terms violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Certainly it is unusual, said Bryan Stevenson, the attorney for Joe Harris Sullivan, who was sentenced at age 13 for raping an elderly woman. Only two cases exist of someone that young receiving life in prison without parole, he said, both in Florida. "But we also contend to say to any child of 13 that you are only fit to die in prison is cruel," Stevenson said. "It can't be reconciled with what we know about the nature of children, about the character of children. It cannot be reconciled with our standards of decency."

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