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Article: Justices will scrutinize life sentences for youths; Cases of two Florida juveniles raise questions about penalty for non-homicide crimes
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 29, 2009
- Author:
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It did not take long for the judge to determine that the
convicted rapist in front of him was irredeemable.
"He is beyond help," Judge Nicholas Geeker said of Joe Harris
Sullivan. "I'm going to try to send him away for as long as I can."
And then Geeker sentenced Sullivan to life in prison without the
possibility of parole. At the time, Sullivan was 13 years old.
Now, 20 years after that sentencing in a courtroom in Pensacola,
Fla., the Supreme Court will consider whether Sullivan's prison term
-- and what his supporters say is an only-in-America phenomenon of
extreme sentences for juveniles -- violates the Constitution's
prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
The case -- which ...