By: Raegan Burke
Florida remains one of the twenty-five states that allows for juveniles to be sentenced to life without parole if they are convicted of a homicide.[1] Juvenile life without parole is not unconstitutional, and despite repeated challenges to the sentence, the Supreme Court has upheld its constitutionality, while limiting application of the sentence.[2] In 2005, the Supreme Court struck down juvenile death sentences, and held that life without the possibility of parole would be the harshest sentence a juvenile could receive.[3] In 2010, the Supreme Court ordered that juvenile life without parole could only be imposed for homicide offenses, and struck down its use for non-homicide offenses.[4] The 2012 Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama, then struck down mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences and forced Florida to rework its sentencing scheme.[5] Most recently, in 2021, the Supreme Court announced its decision in Jones v. Mississippi.[6] This decision reemphasized the broad sentencing discretion left to judges and legislatures under the Eighth Amendment.[7]
While juvenile life without parole is an already harrowing sentence, the racial disparity inherent in the sentencing process makes the reality of its application even worse. The Supreme Court’s decision in Miller, which struck down mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences, may initially have been considered to lessen the already prevalent racial disparities in sentencing, in fact made it worse. Before Miller, about 60% of juvenile life without parole sentences were imposed on Black youth, after Miller that number rose to 72%.[8] These statistics are not as shocking when considered in the context of how Black youth are treated by authority in general. In schools, Black youth are 2.3x more likely to be referred to law enforcement by school officials and are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.[9]
One reason for the disproportionate sentencing of Black youth may be the adultification of Black children. Adultification of Black youth in the criminal justice system is the idea that Black girls are “less innocent” than white girls of their same age, and the idea that Black boys are “more culpable” than white boys of their same age.[10] This phenomenon is illustrated by the characterization of Black youth as “super predators” in the 1990s. The term super predator was coined by an academic named John J. DiIulio Jr., who wrote, in 1986, that by the year 2000, “30,000 murderers, rapists, and muggers” would be roaming the streets.[11] Despite the fact that by the year 2000 murder arrests had fallen by two-thirds, the article DiIulio wrote struck a chord with the American public and spawned over a decade of politicians and the media characterizing Black youth as “super predators.”[12]
Juvenile life without parole cannot remain a viable sentence for youth when its history is so rooted in racism and its application points to a clear disparity between Black and white youth. To overcome the racial inequality in our juvenile sentencing scheme, the Florida legislature must start by getting rid of juvenile life without parole sentences.
It’s true that the Florida legislature has already taken one step towards abolishing the juvenile life without parole statute by implementing a new statute in 2014 that reworked considerations for juvenile life without parole sentencing and set standards for courts to determine eligibility for release.[13] This statute requires courts to consider factors relevant to the offense and the defendant’s youth, such as the nature and circumstance of the offense, the effect of the crime on the victim’s family, the defendant’s age, maturity, and intellectual capacity, and the defendant’s background, among other considerations.[14]
In addition, the First District Court of Appeal of Florida recently considered a juvenile life without parole claim, where the defendant sought an explanation on how appellate review works under Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, and specifically how the abuse of standard discretion in Jones v. Mississippi, would apply.[15] In a Per Curiam opinion, the court denied the defendant’s motion for a rehearing.[16] However, in two concurring opinions, Justice Makar and Justice Long explained the court’s takeaway from Jones and the standard of review applied in these cases.[17] In his appeal, the defendant posited that there may be no scenario which the court sees as an abuse of discretion.[18] Justice Makar wrote that the Jones decision shifted the standard to state courts and legislature. It leaves “standards for discretionary sentencing decisions” to “come from developments in state procedures and legislation.”[19] Justice Long wrote, agreeing with Justice Long, that “in order to reverse a trial court’s judgement, it must be that ‘no reasonable judge could differ as to the propriety of’ the sentence.”[20]
In sum, the new sentencing scheme implemented by Florida legislature is a positive step towards reducing the arbitrariness of juvenile life sentences. However, taken together with the opinion in Washington, it gives judges far too much leeway in sentencing defendants, which time and again has led to biases and racial injustice in the criminal legal system. To eliminate this error altogether, the Florida legislature needs to abolish the juvenile life without parole sentence once and for all.
[1] Josh Rovner, Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview, The Sentencing Project (May 24, 2021), https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/juvenile-life-without-parole/.
[2] Id.
[3] Roper v. Simmons, 534 U.S. 551, 572 (2005).
[4] Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 74 (2010).
[5] Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 465 (2012).
[6] Jones v. Mississippi, 141 S. Ct. 1307 (2021).
[7] Id. at 1319-21.
[8] Beth Schwartzapfel, Supreme Court Conservatives Just Made It Easier to Sentence Kids to Life in Prison, The Marshall Project (Apr. 30, 2021, 6:00 AM), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/04/30/supreme-court-conservatives-just-made-it-easier-to-sentence-kids-to-life-in-prison.
[9] Id.
[10] Andreea Matei & Colette Marcellin, State Bans on Juvenile Life Without Parole Can Right the Wrongs of Jones v. Mississippi, Urban Institute (May 6, 2021), https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/state-bans-juvenile-life-without-parole-can-right-wrongs-jones-v-mississippi.
[11] Carrol Bogert & Lynell Hancock, Superpredator: The Media Myth That Demonized a Generation of Black Youth, The Marshall Project (Nov. 20, 2020), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/11/20/superpredator-the-media-myth-that-demonized-a-generation-of-black-youth.
[12] Id.
[13] Fla. Stat. § 921.1401 (2021).
[14] Id.
[15] Washington v. Florida, 325 So. 3d 306, 307 (Fla. 1st DCA Aug. 31, 2021).
[16] Id. at 307-08.
[17] Id. at 307-09.
[18] Id. at 307.
[19] Id. at 308.
[20] Id. at 310 (quoting Canakaris v. Canakaris, 382 So. 2d 1197, 1203 (Fla. 1980)).
