Iowa Supreme Court refuses to extend Eighth Amendment juve mandatory LWOP prohibition to murder committed days after 18th birthday

As reported in this Des Moines Register article, the Iowa Supreme Court issued an interesting ruling refusing to extend an Eighth Amendment right protecting juvenile murderers. Here are the basics:

Two Iowans who were sentenced to life in prison for murders committed when they were teenagers must stay incarcerated, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday. Lawyers for the Des Moines men claimed they should not have been sentenced to adult standards because the crimes were committed when they were 18 and 19 years old. Two Iowa Supreme Court decisions rejected claims that sentencing very young adults to adult sentences constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Building on U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the state court has previously held that youth who commit crimes before they turn 18, even first-degree murder, cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole. But once someone turns 18, Friday's rulings held, they face the full penalties prescribed by law.

The two cases both involve Des Moines men who've been fighting for decades to overturn their convictions and sentences for murder. In one case, the defendant was only five days past his 18th birthday at the time of the offense. James Dorsey, who was convicted of the 1984 murder of Juanita Weaver during a home invasion, argued that modern medical and social science shows the brain does not fully mature until age 25.

Justice Christopher McDonald, who wrote both majority opinions, acknowledges that the 18th birthday might be an arbitrary place to draw a line, but said a line must be drawn somewhere. He noted many areas outside criminal law where turning 18 triggers new rights and responsibilities....

In the second case, Fernando Sandoval was 19 in 2004 when he shot and killed two men during a fight outside a Des Moines bar. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to life in prison, and has brought multiple unsuccessful appeals and petitions for postconviction relief....

The only dissenter in both cases was Justice Brent Appel, the sole Democratic appointee on the court. Appel wrote in Dorsey's case that he would not "simply extend the categorical rule ... prohibiting life-without-possibility-of-parole sentences to young adults," but instead that such cases should be treated as other states treat death sentences, requiring an "individualized assessment" by the court whether the defendant truly merits lifelong detention....

Iowa law mandates life without parole for anyone convicted of first-degree murder, except for juveniles, who may be eligible for parole.

The full ruling in Dorsey v, Iowa, No. 19–1917 (Iowa June 10, 2022), is available at this link and here is how the majority opinion begins:

Petitioner James Dorsey shot and killed a woman when he was eighteen years and five days old. He was found guilty of murder in the first degree and was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Dorsey contends this sentence violates his state constitutional right to be free from “cruel and unusual punishment.” Iowa Const. art. I, § 17.  He argues the state constitution prohibits imposing a mandatory punishment on a young adult offender and instead requires the district court to hold an individualized sentencing hearing before imposing any sentence. He further argues his life sentence without the possibility of parole is grossly disproportionate to the crime. For the reasons expressed below, we affirm Dorsey’s sentence.

Here is how the lengthy dissent by Judge Appel wraps up:

While an offender under the age of eighteen may be entitled to a categorical exclusion from a life-without-possibility-of-parole sentence, I would hold that an individual older than eighteen might be subject to life without possibility of parole provided that the state can make the necessary showing of incorrigibility to support the sentence.

Because of the confluence of the mitigating factors of youth and the harshness of the penalty, I would apply a different version of the gross proportionality test than has traditionally been applied under the federal caselaw. Instead, in the context of a youthful offender facing life without possibility of parole, the state should be required to show that the individual offender is so incorrigible that even considering a parole-based release at a later date is out of the question.  This heightened sense of proportionality is necessary because of the potent combination of potential mitigating factors and the irreversible and severe nature of the underlying punishment.  This extension of individualized determinations is a small but necessary evolution of our current law.