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"'Death is Different? No Longer: Graham v. Florida and the Future of Eighth Amendment Challenges to Noncapital Sentences"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this new paper now available via SSRN authored by Alison Siegler and Barry Sullivan. Here is the abstract: In Graham v Florida, a Florida state prisoner asked the Supreme Court to hold that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment categorically precludes the imposition of life-without-parole sentences for any juvenile offender who has committed a nonhomicide offense.  There was no Supreme Court precedent to support such a holding. Indeed, the relevant Supreme Court jurisprudence seemed clearly to preclude Graham?s argument.  Remarkably, however, the Court accepted Graham?s invitation and left behind more than thirty years of consistent Supreme Court jurisprudence, seemingly without a second thought or backward glance...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 30, 2011 (boomark / email).