560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010)
Terrance Graham was sixteen years old when he committed armed burglary and attempted armed robbery in Florida.1 In return for his guilty plea to these charges, the Florida trial court withheld adjudication of guilt and sentenced him to probation rather than entering a formal conviction.2
Graham subsequently violated the terms of his probation by committing additional crimes.3 The trial court then adjudicated him guilty of the original charges, revoked his probation, and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the armed burglary.4
Because Florida has abolished its parole system, the sentence ensures that Graham will die in prison without any meaningful opportunity to obtain release, no matter what he might do to demonstrate that he has matured or been rehabilitated.5 The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the sentence on appeal.6
The case reached the United States Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari to determine whether the sentence violated the Eighth Amendment.7
Whether the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause permits a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime?8
The Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.9 A State need not guarantee the offender eventual release, but if it imposes a sentence of life it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.10 Categorical rules are appropriate when sentencing practices such as life without parole for nonhomicide crimes committed by juveniles are inherently disproportionate as applied to that class of offenders.11
No. The established facts show that Terrance Graham was sixteen years old when he committed armed burglary and attempted armed robbery.12
In return for his guilty plea, the Florida trial court withheld adjudication of guilt and sentenced him to probation.13 Graham subsequently violated the terms of his probation by committing additional crimes. The trial court adjudicated Graham guilty of the earlier charges, revoked his probation, and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the armed burglary.14 Because Florida has abolished its parole system, the sentence ensures that Graham will die in prison without any meaningful opportunity to obtain release, no matter what he might do to demonstrate that he has matured or been rehabilitated. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the sentence on appeal.
The case reached the United States Supreme Court on a petition for certiorari.
Application of the categorical rule begins with objective indicia of national consensus.15 Although thirty-seven jurisdictions permit the sentence in theory, only 109 juvenile offenders nationwide are serving life without parole for nonhomicide crimes, demonstrating that the practice is exceedingly rare.16 The Court next examines the culpability of juvenile offenders and the severity of the punishment.17 Juveniles are more capable of change than adults.18 Their actions are less likely to be evidence of irretrievably depraved character.19 Juveniles are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside pressures, including from their family and peers.20 Life without parole is especially harsh for a juvenile because the offender will serve more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison than an adult offender.21 Penological justifications of retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation are inadequate.22 Juveniles are less likely to take a possible punishment into consideration when making decisions.23 By denying the juvenile the right to reenter society, the sentence makes it impossible for the juvenile to demonstrate that he has been rehabilitated.24
The Court’s own sense of moral proportionality confirms the conclusion.25 Life without parole is the second most severe penalty permitted by law.26 It is the same as a death sentence for a juvenile in that it guarantees that the juvenile will die in prison.27 A categorical rule is appropriate because of the difficulty of distinguishing between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.28 The sentence imposed on Graham is unconstitutional.29
The Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole imposed on Graham for his nonhomicide crimes.30
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Ginsburg And Justice Sotomayor
Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, concurred to emphasize that evolving standards of decency have long played a central role in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.31 He rejected Justice Thomas’s rigid and static interpretation of the Amendment, noting that society changes and knowledge accumulates so that punishments once acceptable may later be found cruel and unusual.32 Proportionality review must remain available lest the moral commitment embodied in the Eighth Amendment become obsolete.33
Justice Stevens observed that standards of decency have evolved since 1980 and will continue to do so.34
Chief Justice Roberts concurred in the judgment that Graham’s sentence violates the Eighth Amendment but declined to adopt the majority’s new categorical rule.35 He applied the narrow proportionality review developed in Solem v. Helm, Ewing v. California, and Harmelin v. Michigan, together with Roper v. Simmons’s recognition that juveniles are generally less culpable than adults.36 Comparing the gravity of Graham’s conduct to the harshness of life without parole, and noting Graham’s youth, lack of prior convictions, and the sentences proposed by the state, Roberts found a strong inference of gross disproportionality confirmed by intrajurisdictional and interjurisdictional comparisons.37
He cautioned that the categorical rule was unnecessary and unwise because some nonhomicide crimes committed by juveniles may justify life without parole.38
Justice Alito dissented and joined Parts I and III of Justice Thomas’s opinion.39 He stressed that the Court’s holding applies only to life without parole and does not affect sentences of a term of years without parole.40 Alito further argued that the narrow as-applied proportionality challenge was not properly before the Court because Graham had abandoned it in his petition for certiorari and merits briefs, seeking only a categorical rule.41
He would therefore not reach the as-applied issue.42