Life Sentences for Youths
20 years after Joe Harris Sullivan was convicted of rape as 13-year-old boy, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole, the Supreme Court is reexamining his sentence to determine if the term is not cruel and unusual punishment. The only two 13-year-old children in America to be sentenced to life in prison without parole were sentenced in Florida courts, which in 2005 ruled that juveniles cannot be executed for committing murder. Neither youth was on trial for murder. In the 2005 case, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had said:
“The reality that juveniles still struggle to define their identity means it is less supportable to conclude that even a heinous crime committed by a juvenile is evidence of irretrievably depraved character. . . . It would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor’s character deficiencies will be reformed.”
Sullivan’s lawyer is attempting to use the 2005 ruling to highlight why the Sullivan’s term is unjust stating, “They are both effectively death sentences. One is death by execution, and the other is death by incarceration, but they are both terminal sentences.”