Crime and Too Much Punishment

In 1989, the circuit court in Escambia County, Fla., sentenced 13-year-old Joe Sullivan to a lifetime sentence for rape of a 72-year-old woman, with no possibility of parole. The grounds for Sullivan’s conviction were shaky. First, the trial only lasted one day. Second, the victim could not clearly identify Sullivan as the rapist, and biological evidence was not presented in court—and has since been destroyed. Nevertheless, even if Sullivan committed the crime, he did not deserve the punishment he received.

No 13-year old child should ever be sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. At such a young age, adolescents’ brains are very much still in a process of development. Young children should not be held culpable as adult criminals would be in many cases because children’s reasoning capabilities are not fully developed. This is one reason why young children should often not be tried as adults. What is more, the age-old adage that “people can change” holds especially true for someone just beginning an important stage of personal development. An individual’s brain and behavior change drastically throughout adolescence. It is not right, nor is it realistically possible, to assume that a 13-year-old who is guilty of a crime—no matter how grievous—will remain a criminal for the rest of his life.

Confining a child to prison for the rest of his or her life constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, a type of injustice that the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits. The cruelty of confining a child to a lifetime in prison is self-evident. Such sentences are also unusual, for the punishment does not fit the crime—especially when, as in the case of Joe Sullivan, the crime does not involve homicide. Sullivan’s lawyers have recently petitioned the Supreme Court to consider this case and to determine whether the Eighth Amendment forbids such sentences for young adolescents.

The Supreme Court should grant Sullivan parole and prohibit this type of sentence from being given to such young offenders. It is unjust and contrary to our constitution to sentence a 13-year-old child to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Ruling on this case would be a logical next step from the court’s 2005 decision in Roger v. Simmons, which outlawed the use of the death penalty for minors. The court should use the Sullivan case to build upon the precedents it has recently set regarding just punishments for minors convicted of crimes. However, while 13 is much too young for a life sentence without parole, courts should still have the authority to exercise their discretion in giving such sentences to older adolescents. Of course, in such cases, courts must use every method available to determine whether older adolescents are deserving of such harsh punishment.

Finally, as Sullivan’s potential innocence demonstrates, both adolescents and adults alike should have more opportunities for appeals and review in non-capital cases. The United States is the only country in the world where a 13-year-old is known to be sentenced to die in prison—currently, 74 people in the U.S. are serving life sentences without possibility of parole for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14 years old. While the Supreme Court’s recent banning of capital punishment for adolescents is commendable, the court must expand this judicial review to non-capital cases to ensure that all individuals convicted of a crime, especially adolescents, receive appropriate punishments.