Split Washington Supreme Court revisits its limits on long prison terms for juvenile offenders

As explained in this AP article, a "year after saying virtual life sentences are unconstitutional for teenage killers, the Washington Supreme Court changed course Thursday in a split ruling that drew irate dissents from four justices.  The 5-4 decision was a striking departure for a court that in recent years has steadily embraced research showing that juveniles’ brain development typically makes them less culpable than adults, and which has made significant efforts to undo the impact of racial bias in the criminal justice system."  The majority opinion in Washington v. Anderson, No. 97890-5 (Wash. Sept. 8, 2028) (available here), starts this way:

Tonelli Anderson is serving a 61-year sentence for two first degree murders he committed at age 17. Anderson asks us to hold that his sentence is unconstitutionally cruel in violation of article I, section 14 of Washington’s constitution.  He argues that this court’s recent decision in State v. Haag announced a bright line rule that no juvenile offender can ever receive a sentence of 46 years or longer — no matter how serious or numerous their crimes may be — and so his sentence is unconstitutional because it is longer than 46 years.  We disagree with Anderson’s interpretation of Haag.

Haag is properly understood as announcing that article I, section 14 of Washington’s constitution limits the category of juvenile offenders who can receive de facto life without parole (LWOP) sentences, the harshest punishments possible for juvenile offenders under Washington law.  In Haag, we determined that a particular juvenile offender could not receive such a harsh punishment because his crime reflected youthful immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences. But when, as here, a juvenile offender’s crimes do not reflect those mitigating qualities of youth, Washington’s constitution does not bar a de facto LWOP sentence.

The King County Superior Court properly considered all of Anderson’s evidence regarding the mitigating qualities of his youth and his rehabilitation while in prison.  In light of that evidence and the trial record, the court appropriately determined that Anderson’s crimes do not reflect youthful immaturity, impetuosity, or failure to appreciate risks and consequences. Article I, section 14 of Washington’s constitution therefore does not prohibit Anderson’s 61-year sentence. We affirm.

A dissent by Chief Justice Gonzalez starts this way:

Even if I could join the majority’s repudiation of our recent constitutional jurisprudence, I could not join it in affirming the trial court’s resentencing decision here. The resentencing judge abused her discretion by failing to meaningfully consider how juveniles are different from adults, by failing to meaningfully consider how those differences applied to Tonelli Anderson, by failing to consider whether Anderson’s case was one of the few where a life without parole sentence is constitutionally permissible, by failing to give meaningful weight to the significant evidence that Tonelli Anderson had rehabilitated himself while in prison, and by improperly allocating the burden of proof to him at resentencing. For all these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

Another dissent from Justice Yu starts this way:

I agree with the dissent that Tonelli Anderson is entitled to resentencing pursuant to this court’s precedent, which recognizes “that life is more than just life expectancy and that a juvenile must have a meaningful opportunity to rejoin society after leaving prison.” State v. Haag, 198 Wn.2d 309, 328, 495 P.3d 241 (2021). I write separately to elaborate on the ways in which the majority undermines our precedent, ignores fundamental principles of stare decisis, and disregards this court’s own call to “recognize the role we have played in devaluing [B]lack lives.” Letter from Wash. State Sup. Ct. to Members of Judiciary & Legal Cmty. at 1 (June 4, 2020), https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicUpload/Supreme%20Court%20 News/Judiciary%20Legal%20Community%20SIGNED%20060420.pdf [https://perma.cc/QNT4-H5P7]. Today’s decision is contrary to both longestablished principles of law and newly recognized principles of justice. I therefore respectfully concur in the dissent.