11th Circuit Court Of Appeals Rules That Life Without Parole Allowed For Juveniles

The Associated Press reports:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday held that juveniles convicted of murder can be sentenced to life in prison without parole, seeking to settle a lingering debate over how the courts punish minors who commit serious offenses.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death and that they also can't be sentenced to life in prison without parole for rape and other non-homicide offenses. The ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, though, upheld life sentences for juveniles convicted of murder.

The decision came in the case against Kenneth Loggins, who was convicted in Alabama of killing a hitchhiker in 1994 and originally sentenced to die. He was 17 at the time of the killing, so his punishment was reduced to life without parole because the Supreme Court banned such executions in 2005.

His attorneys had urged the three-judge panel to broaden a 2010 Supreme Court by including murders as an offense that can't carry a life sentence. That 5-4 ruling held that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole if they haven't killed anyone, and ordered the courts to allow them a "meaningful opportunity to obtain release."

But prosecutors argued that the high court took pains to specify the ruling only applied in non-homicide cases, and the 11th Circuit said it found no reason to toss out Loggins' prison sentence.

The decision, written by Circuit Judge Ed Carnes, said "there's nothing in law or logic" to support the argument that a state shouldn't be allowed to impose the next most severe punishment if a death penalty sentence is banned.
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The 11th Circuit has jurisdiction over federal cases in Georgia, Alabama and Florida, but lawyers in other areas will likely use the opinion to back up their own arguments.

The Supreme Court only declared that the death penalty for juveniles was a violation of the Eight Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" in 2010. It's not a surprise then that a Court of Appeals would find life without parole still Constitutionally viable even just under current Supreme Court precedent. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented in the juvenile death penalty case and his opinion explaining why the Constitution does not forbid even the death penalty for a juvenile can and should be read here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-7412.ZD.html Tweet