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June 10, 2024
Flagging challenge to Arizona's suspect application of Miller juve LWOP limis
Adam Liptak has this new piece at the New York Times detailing a pending Supreme Court challenge to how Arizona had dealt with Miller's Eighth Amendment limit on juve LWOP sentences. Here is the piece's full headline: "In Arizona, Life Sentences for Juveniles Test Supreme Court Precedents: The justices will soon decide whether to hear a case that could affect more than two dozen youths sentenced to die in prison." Here is an excerpt:
The new case involves Lonnie Bassett, who was convicted of two murders committed when he was 16. When he was sentenced in 2006, Arizona law did not give the judge the option of sentencing him to anything but life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In a unanimous opinion last year, the Arizona Supreme Court did not dispute that. But it said an idiosyncratic feature of the state law, allowing judges to choose between “natural life” without the possibility of release in any fashion and life without parole but with the theoretical possibility of clemency from the governor, rendered it constitutional.
Rejecting the usual understanding of the governing precedent, the court said, “Miller and its progeny do not specifically require the availability of parole when sentencing a juvenile offender.”
Lawyers for Mr. Bassett asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, saying that his case could determine the fates of more than two dozen other juvenile offenders. The case, they wrote, “presents exceptionally significant questions about gamesmanship and the supremacy of federal law.”
June 10, 2024 at 09:50 PM | Permalink
Comments
For cert petitions, many are called but few are chosen.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 10, 2024 10:03:28 PM
Let's overrule these BS cases. LWOP baby.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 11, 2024 8:42:58 AM
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-socialite-rebecca-grossman-sentenced-15-life-killing-2-kids-rcna156458
Curious your thoughts, Doug, and everyone else. What is super off-putting is to hear DA Gascon talk about how she needs to have a harsh sentence--totally agreed, but he's pretty lenient and has been very nice to criminals. 15 to life, in the context of Gascon's generally soft on crime stance feels right, but that tells you all you need to know about these evil DA.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 11, 2024 8:45:13 AM
The article you link, federalist, says "Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 34 years to life." So I am not clear if you think that was the proper recommendation or a problematic one.
More generally, though, I perceive that some in the progressive prosecutor universe have complained that elites too often get cut breaks (see, eg, Epstein) while the poor and marginalized get hammered. I am not familiar with California norms for sentencing after two counts of second-degree murder and hit-and-run, but I wonder if what might be called a "populist" philosophy of progressive prosecutor sentencing also may have played some role here.
I see all car homicide cases, when clearly unintended, as so very tragic and often so very hard to sentence. I have covered the remarkable sad case involving Amy Locane in New Jersey that has tied a number of courts in knots trying to get to the "right" sentence in a somewhat similar case.
Posted by: Doug B | Jun 11, 2024 9:20:51 AM
Of course, I think the sentence is too lenient. This was an egregious case, and hit and run is just selfish and awful. But whining about a lenient sentence is really rich coming from Gascon.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 11, 2024 11:32:33 AM
