Ohio Supreme Court says 'functional life sentences' for juveniles are unconstitutional

Cleveland.com

A divided Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday said that "functional life sentences" -- or sentences long enough that the inmate would likely not live to see his or her parole date -- were unconstitutional to impose on juveniles not convicted of homicide.

The justices in a 4-3 decision overturned the 112-year sentence Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge R. Scott Krichbaum imposed on Brandon Moore, a now 30-year-old inmate who went on a violent crime spree in 2001.

Moore is not eligible for release until he is 92 years old.

The justices said Moore's sentence was unconstitutional because it runs contrary to Graham v. Florida, a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said juveniles cannot be sentenced to life in prison without parole for crimes that are not homicides. Since Moore's release eligibility date is set for far beyond his life expectancy, Graham extends to Moore's sentence as well, and it violates Moore's constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment, wrote Ohio Justice Paul Pfeifer.

"It does not take an entire lifetime for a juvenile offender to earn a first chance to demonstrate that he is not irredeemable," Pfeifer wrote.

(You can read the full opinion here or at the bottom of this story.)

The Ohio Supreme Court's opinion is in line with other state and federal decisions regarding harsh sentences for juveniles.

The facts of Moore's case "do not engender a sense of sympathy for appellant," Pfeifer notes at the outset of the opinion. On Aug. 21, 2001, when Moore was 15, he robbed two people at gunpoint. Later that night, he ambushed a woman at Youngstown State University, ordering her into her car and robbing her as he drove her car. Another man, Chaz Bunch got into the car, and they raped the woman.

Moore and Bunch were tried as adults and found guilty at trial. Krichbaum sentenced Moore to 141 years in prison, a sentence later reduced by 29 years. At a re-sentencing hearing, Krichbaum told Moore that he felt "you should never be released from the penitentiary," the Ohio Supreme Court opinion says.

Pfeifer wrote the U.S. Supreme Court did not outright bar life sentences for juvenile offenders not convicted of homicide. Rather, it prohibits judges from making that decision when the juvenile is first sentenced.

In other words, that decision should be made later, by a parole board or a judge, after the offender has served part of their sentence.

Justices Sharon Kennedy, Terrence O'Donnell and Judith French dissented from the majority. French argued that Moore's appeal was not filed in a timely manner.

Kennedy and O'Donnell also argued that Graham was distinguishable from Moore's case, as the Supreme Court "did not decide whether the imposition of consecutive, fixed-term prison sentences for multiple non-homicide offenses that result in a lengthy aggregate sentence violate the Eighth Amendment."

The Ohio Supreme Court, in a separate decision, also ruled Thursday that mandatory transfers of juvenile criminal cases to adult courts are unconstitutional.