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Despite Graham ruling, Florida prosecutors have violent teen on path to LWOP sentence

By Douglas A. Berman

This local article from Florida, which is headlined "Teen faces adult charge, contrary to high-court ruling," reports on an interesting case stuggling to deal with the aftermath of the Supreme Court's landmark Eighth Amendment ruling last month in Graham. Here are the interesting details: Prosecutors have decided to try 16-year-old Henry "Peanut" Baker as an adult in the shooting of a Sanford police officer two weeks ago. That puts him in the cross-hairs of a dispute about what to do with violent juveniles.  If convicted, Baker faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. But two weeks before his arrest, the U.S. Supreme Court barred that sentence for anyone under 18 who had not committed murder. Ordering a child who was not a murderer to prison with no possibility of release is cruel and therefore unconstitutional, the court ruled...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 15, 2010 (boomark / email).