Excessive Punishment

132 S.Ct. 2455
Supreme Court of the United States
Evan MILLER, Petitioner
v.
ALABAMA.
Decided June 25, 2012.

Opinion

Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The two 14–year–old offenders in these cases were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In neither case did the sentencing authority have any discretion to impose a different punishment. State law mandated that each juvenile die in prison even if a judge or jury would have thought that his youth and its attendant characteristics, along with the nature of his crime, made a lesser sentence (for example, life with the possibility of parole) more appropriate. Such a scheme prevents those meting out punishment from considering a juvenile’s “lessened culpability” and greater “capacity for change,” … and runs afoul of our cases’ requirement of individualized sentencing for defendants facing the most serious penalties. We therefore hold that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”

…

I.

In November 1999, petitioner Kuntrell Jackson, then 14 years old, and two other boys decided to rob a video store. En route to the store, Jackson learned that one of the boys, Derrick Shields, was carrying a sawed-off shotgun in his coat sleeve. Jackson decided to stay outside when the two other boys entered the store. Inside, Shields pointed the gun at the store clerk, Laurie Troup, and demanded that she “give up the money.” Troup refused. A few moments later, Jackson went into the store to find Shields continuing to demand money. At trial, the parties disputed whether Jackson warned Troup that “[w]e ain’t playin’,” or instead told his friends, “I thought you all was playin.” When Troup threatened to call the police, Shields shot and killed her. The three boys fled empty-handed.

Arkansas law gives prosecutors discretion to charge 14–year-olds as adults when they are alleged to have committed certain serious offenses. The prosecutor here exercised that authority by charging Jackson with capital felony murder and aggravated robbery. Jackson moved to transfer the case to juvenile court, but after considering the alleged facts of the crime, a psychiatrist’s examination, and Jackson’s juvenile arrest history (shoplifting and several incidents of car theft), the trial court denied the motion, and an appellate court affirmed. A jury later convicted Jackson of both crimes. Noting that “in view of [the] verdict, there’s only one possible punishment,” the judge sentenced Jackson to life without parole.

…

Like Jackson, petitioner Evan Miller was 14 years old at the time of his crime. Miller had by then been in and out of foster care because his mother suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction and his stepfather abused him. Miller, too, regularly used drugs and alcohol; and he had attempted suicide four times, the first when he was six years old.

One night in 2003, Miller was at home with a friend, Colby Smith, when a neighbor, Cole Cannon, came to make a drug deal with Miller’s mother. The two boys followed Cannon back to his trailer, where all three smoked marijuana and played drinking games. When Cannon passed out, Miller stole his wallet, splitting about $300 with Smith. Miller then tried to put the wallet back in Cannon’s pocket, but Cannon awoke and grabbed Miller by the throat. Smith hit Cannon with a nearby baseball bat, and once released, Miller grabbed the bat and repeatedly struck Cannon with it. Miller placed a sheet over Cannon’s head, told him “ ‘I am God, I’ve come to take your life,’ ” and delivered one more blow. The boys then retreated to Miller’s trailer, but soon decided to return to Cannon’s to cover up evidence of their crime. Once there, they lit two fires. Cannon eventually died from his injuries and smoke inhalation.

Alabama law required that Miller initially be charged as a juvenile, but allowed the District Attorney to seek removal of the case to adult court. The D.A. did so, and the juvenile court agreed to the transfer after a hearing. The State accordingly charged Miller as an adult with murder in the course of arson. That crime (like capital murder in Arkansas) carries a mandatory minimum punishment of life without parole.

Relying in significant part on testimony from Smith, who had pleaded to a lesser offense, a jury found Miller guilty. He was therefore sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, ruling that life without parole was “not overly harsh when compared to the crime” and that the mandatory nature of the sentencing scheme was permissible under the Eighth Amendment.

We granted certiorari in both cases and now reverse.

II.

The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment “guarantees individuals the right not to be subjected to excessive sanctions.” That right, we have explained, “flows from the basic ‘precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned’ ” to both the offender and the offense.  As we noted the last time we considered life-without-parole sentences imposed on juveniles, “[t]he concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment.” [citing Graham]. And we view that concept less through a historical prism than according to the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

The cases before us implicate two strands of precedent reflecting our concern with proportionate punishment. The first has adopted categorical bans on sentencing practices based on mismatches between the culpability of a class of offenders and the severity of a penalty. So, for example, we have held that imposing the death penalty for nonhomicide crimes against individuals, or imposing it on mentally retarded defendants, violates the Eighth Amendment. See Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). Several of the cases in this group have specially focused on juvenile offenders, because of their lesser culpability. Thus, Roper held that the Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment for children, and Graham concluded that the Amendment also prohibits a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for a child who committed a nonhomicide offense. Graham further likened life without parole for juveniles to the death penalty itself, thereby evoking a second line of our precedents. In those cases, we have prohibited mandatory imposition of capital punishment, requiring that sentencing authorities consider the characteristics of a defendant and the details of his  offense before sentencing him to death. Here, the confluence of these two lines of precedent leads to the conclusion that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment.

To start with the first set of cases: Roper and Graham establish that children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing. Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform, we explained, “they are less deserving of the most severe punishments.” [citing Graham]. Those cases relied on three significant gaps between juveniles and adults. First, children have a “ ‘lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,’ ” leading to recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking. [citing Roper]. Second, children “are more vulnerable … to negative influences and outside pressures,” including from their family and peers; they have limited “control over their own environment” and lack the ability to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing settings. Ibid. And third, a child’s character is not as “ well formed” as an adult’s; his traits are “less fixed” and his actions less likely to be “evidence of irretrievable depravity.” [citing Roper].

Our decisions rested not only on common sense—on what “any parent knows”—but on science and social science as well. In Roper, we cited studies showing that [only a relatively small proportion of adolescents who engage in illegal activity develop entrenched patterns of problem behavior. And in Graham, we noted that “developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds”—for example, in “parts of the brain involved in behavior control.” We reasoned that those findings—of transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences—both lessened a child’s “moral culpability” and enhanced the prospect that, as the years go by and neurological development occurs, his “deficiencies will be reformed.”

Roper and Graham emphasized that the distinctive attributes of youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes. Because “the heart of the retribution rationale” relates to an offender’s blameworthiness, “‘the case for retribution is not as strong with a minor as with an adult.” Nor can deterrence do the work in this context, because the same characteristics that render juveniles less culpable than adults – their immaturity, recklessness, and impetuosity—make them less likely to consider potential punishment. Similarly, incapacitation could not support the life-without-parole sentence in Graham: Deciding that a “juvenile offender forever will be a danger to society” would require “making a judgment that he is incorrigible”—but “incorrigibility is inconsistent with youth.” And for the same reason, rehabilitation could not justify that sentence. Life without parole “forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal.” It reflects “an irrevocable judgment about an offender’s value and place in society,” at odds with a child’s capacity for change.

…

Most fundamentally, Graham insists that youth matters in determining the appropriateness of a lifetime of incarceration without the possibility of parole. In the circumstances there, juvenile status precluded a life-without-parole sentence, even though an adult could receive it for a similar crime. And in other contexts as well, the characteristics of youth, and the way they weaken rationales for punishment, can render a life-without-parole sentence disproportionate. “An offender’s age,” we made clear in Graham, “is relevant to the Eighth Amendment,” and so “criminal procedure laws that fail to take defendants’ youthfulness into account at all would be flawed.”[…]

But the mandatory penalty schemes at issue here prevent the sentencer from taking account of these central considerations. By removing youth from the balance—by subjecting a juvenile to the same life-without-parole sentence applicable to an adult—these laws prohibit a sentencing authority from assessing whether the law’s harshest term of imprisonment proportionately punishes a juvenile offender. That contravenes Graham ‘s (and also Roper ‘s) foundational principle: that imposition of a State’s most severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children.

In light of Graham’s reasoning, [our precedent] show the flaws of imposing mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juvenile homicide offenders. Such mandatory penalties, by their nature, preclude a sentencer from taking account of an offender’s age and the wealth of characteristics and circumstances attendant to it. Under these schemes, every juvenile will receive the same sentence as every other—the 17–year–old and the 14–year–old, the shooter and the accomplice, the child from a stable household and the child from a chaotic and abusive one. And still worse, each juvenile (including these two 14–year–olds) will receive the same sentence as the vast majority of adults committing similar homicide offenses—but really, as Graham noted, a greater sentence than those adults will serve.

So Graham and Roper and our individualized sentencing cases alike teach that in imposing a State’s harshest penalties, a sentencer misses too much if he treats every child as an adult. To recap: Mandatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences. It prevents taking into account the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional. It neglects the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him. Indeed, it ignores that he might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for incompetencies associated with youth—for example, his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on a plea agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys. […] And finally, this mandatory punishment disregards the possibility of rehabilitation even when the circumstances most suggest it.

Both cases before us illustrate the problem. Take Jackson’s first. As noted earlier, Jackson did not fire the bullet that killed Laurie Troup; nor did the State argue that he intended her death. […]To be sure, Jackson learned on the way to the video store that his friend Shields was carrying a gun, but his age could well have affected his calculation of the risk that posed, as well as his willingness to walk away at that point. All these circumstances go to Jackson’s culpability for the offense. And so too does Jackson’s family background and immersion in violence: Both his mother and his grandmother had previously shot other individuals. At the least, a sentencer should look at such facts before depriving a 14–year–old of any prospect of release from prison.

That is true also in Miller’s case. No one can doubt that he and Smith committed a vicious murder. But they did it when high on drugs and alcohol consumed with the adult victim. And if ever a pathological background might have contributed to a 14–year–old’s commission of a crime, it is here. Miller’s stepfather physically abused him; his alcoholic and drug-addicted mother neglected him; he had been in and out of foster care as a result; and he had tried to kill himself four times, the first when he should have been in kindergarten. Nonetheless, Miller’s past criminal history was limited—two instances of truancy and one of “second-degree criminal mischief.” That Miller deserved severe punishment for killing Cole Cannon is beyond question. But once again, a sentencer needed to examine all these circumstances before concluding that life without any possibility of parole was the appropriate penalty.

We therefore hold that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. By making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment. Because that holding is sufficient to decide these cases, we do not consider Jackson’s and Miller’s alternative argument that the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles, or at least for those 14 and younger. But given all we have said in Roper, Graham, and this decision about children’s diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon. That is especially so because of the great difficulty we noted in Roper and Graham of distinguishing at this early age between “the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Although we do not foreclose a sentencer’s ability to make that judgment in homicide cases, we require it to take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.

[…]

It is so ordered.

267 P.3d 667
Court of Appeals of Alaska.
Kira GRAY, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Alaska, Appellee.
No. A–10305.
Dec. 9, 2011.

BOLGER, Judge.

Alaska Statute 47.12.030(a) provides that when a sixteen-year-old minor commits certain serious felonies, including murder, the minor “shall be charged, held, released on bail, prosecuted, sentenced, and incarcerated in the same manner as an adult.” Kira Gray argues that her sentence for first-degree murder violates the constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment … because she was a minor at the time of her offense. But we conclude that this combination of the automatic waiver statute and the adult sentencing statute is consistent with “evolving standards of decency” and [therefore constitutional].

[…]

Background
Gray was sixteen years old and dating Mario Page, an Anchorage drug dealer. While Page was out of state, Gray stole nine ounces of cocaine from Page and gave it to her sister’s boyfriend, Terrell Houngues. When Page returned and found out about the theft, he became angry.

Gray concocted a plan to pacify Page. She falsely told Houngues that she had had an argument with Page and that she knew where Page hid money and drugs. She suggested to Houngues that they should steal Page’s money and drugs. This plan was simply a ruse to kidnap Houngues.

Gray picked up Houngues and drove him to a remote location in the Mat–Su Valley. Page and three other men then arrived in a separate car and forced Houngues into the trunk. They drove to another spot and removed Houngues from the trunk. Page demanded to know what became of the nine ounces of stolen cocaine. When Houngues denied any knowledge of the drugs, Gray shot him in the knee. Houngues was then screaming in pain, so Page told Gray to “shut him up.” Gray and another man, Tommie Patterson, then shot Houngues multiple times, killing him.

Gray was charged and prosecuted as an adult based on the statute that automatically waives juvenile jurisdiction for certain serious crimes. Prior to trial, Gray made a motion for the court to declare the automatic waiver statute unconstitutional, but Superior Court Judge Eric Smith denied the motion. Gray, Page, and Patterson were convicted of murder and kidnapping in separate trials.

At the sentencing hearing, Gray presented testimony from two mental health professionals. Drs. Marty Beyer and Ronald Roesch provided opinions on developmental immaturity in general, along with specific opinions about Gray’s mental state. Dr. Beyer testified that Gray “showed a variety of kinds of immature thinking … that led to irrational behavior and poor moral reasoning, especially when she felt coerced.” Dr. Beyer also testified that juvenile sentences should be less punitive than adult sentences and should generally provide more and earlier opportunities for parole or release because most juvenile offenders are very immature and have “a huge amount of developing still to do.”

Dr. Roesch testified that Gray was “amenable to rehabilitation and that she does have a high potential for change.” Like Dr. Beyer, Dr. Roesch emphasized that, in crafting a juvenile sentence, the court must take developmental differences between juveniles and adults into consideration.
At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, Judge Smith imposed a sentence of ninety-nine years’ imprisonment with forty-four years suspended for Gray’s murder conviction and a consecutive sentence of ten years’ imprisonment for kidnapping. Gray now appeals.

Discussion

The automatic waiver statute does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

As noted above, when a sixteen-year-old minor commits certain serious felonies, the minor is “prosecuted, sentenced, and incarcerated in the same manner as an adult.” Under this statute, a minor convicted of first-degree murder is subject to the same sentence as an adult—generally a sentence of twenty to ninety-nine years’ imprisonment. Gray argues that this statutory scheme violates the state and federal prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment because the statutes do not recognize the differences in culpability between juveniles and adults by providing for early eligibility for discretionary parole.

Gray relies mainly on two recent decisions from the United States Supreme Court: Roper v. Simmons and Graham v. Florida. In Roper, the Court concluded that the Eighth Amendment bars the execution of individuals who were juveniles at the time they committed murder. In Graham, the Court concluded that the Eighth Amendment forbids a juvenile from being sentenced to life without parole for a nonhomicide crime.

In both cases, the Court applied a test that focuses on the characteristics of the offender, considering whether there is a “national consensus” against the imposition of the sentence in question and whether the sentence is categorically unconstitutional. [Specifically, the Graham Court] concluded that

juveniles (as a group) are “less deserving of the most severe punishments” because, compared to adults, they exhibit a “lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,” because they are “more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and … peer pressure,” and because their characters are “not as well formed.”

Under the Alaska Constitution, we have generally applied a different test when we have focused on the characteristics of the penalty imposed. We have asked whether the punishment is so disproportionate to the offense as to be completely arbitrary and shocking to a sense of justice. But in a case where the Alaska Supreme Court focused on the characteristics of the offender, it applied a test similar to the test employed in Roper and Graham, asking whether the sentence violated “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” The present case focuses on Gray’s status as a juvenile. We will therefore focus on national standards and categorical considerations to decide whether a juvenile can be sentenced to an adult sentence for first-degree murder.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently considered a similar question in State v. Ninham. Omer Ninham was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree intentional homicide. On appeal, Ninham argued that sentencing a fourteen-year-old to life imprisonment violates the Eighth Amendment.

The Wisconsin court considered whether sentencing a fourteen-year-old to life without parole is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency. It noted that Graham only prohibited life without parole for nonhomicide offenses and that Roper prohibited capital punishment of juveniles. But neither case directly addressed the constitutionality of a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an intentional homicide.

The Wisconsin court evaluated whether there is a national consensus against sentencing minors to life without parole for intentional homicides. It found that forty-four states allow life imprisonment without parole for homicide offenses for juveniles. Moreover, although few juveniles age fourteen or younger have ever been sentenced to life without a possibility of parole, the court concluded that the statistic did not necessarily show there was a consensus against such a penalty. In summary, the court concluded that there is no national consensus against a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an intentional homicide committed by a minor.

In addition to our review of any national consensus, we also have a responsibility to exercise our independent judgment regarding whether an adult sentence for a minor convicted of murder serves legitimate penological goals. The research that Gray relies on suggests that some minors may have a greater potential for rehabilitation and that there is a lesser need to isolate them to protect the public. This is consistent with our previous recognition that rehabilitation and individual deterrence should be accorded “careful scrutiny and appropriate weight” in cases involving youthful first offenders convicted of first-degree murder.

But a lengthy sentence for the crime of murder promotes other goals. A lengthy sentence affirms the important community norms that protect the value of a human life. And a lengthy sentence can serve as an important deterrent to potential homicide offenders, even when the offenders are juveniles.

Several other courts considering the question have distinguished Graham and held that a life sentence can be imposed on a juvenile convicted of murder without violating the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. We conclude that sentencing a minor to an adult sentence for first-degree murder is not categorically unconstitutional.

[Moreover,] Gray did not receive a life sentence; she received a sentence of only sixty-five years’ imprisonment. She will be eligible for discretionary parole after serving twenty-five years of her sentence. But Gray argues that this sentencing scheme involves cruel and unusual punishment because it does not allow for early eligibility for discretionary parole.

As noted above, the combination of the automatic waiver statute and the adult sentencing statutes promotes various penological goals, especially the goals of general deterrence and affirmation of societal norms. In view of these legitimate legislative considerations, we conclude that the difficulty in applying the goals of rehabilitation and isolation to a juvenile offender does not render this scheme unconstitutionally cruel. The legislature could reasonably determine that, when a minor is convicted of first-degree murder, general sentencing considerations require a substantial delay before the minor becomes eligible for discretionary parole. This aspect of the operation of the automatic waiver statute does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

[…]

Conclusion
We AFFIRM the superior court’s judgment and sentence.