In brief
- Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a 50-year sentence for a juvenile convicted of second-degree murder is unconstitutional as cruel or unusual punishment.
- The 6-1 decision applies retroactively and could affect numerous juvenile sentencing appeals.
- The court determined a 50-year minimum sentence functions as a de facto life sentence because parole eligibility may come too late.
A 50-year sentence for a minor convicted of second-degree murder is akin to “cruel or unusual punishment” and thus is unconstitutional, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled on July 30 in the latest in a series of decisions chipping away at prison sentences for youths convicted of murder.
The 6-1, party-line ruling will apply retroactively, meaning it will affect an unknown number of similar cases that are on appeal. The lone dissenting justice accused the majority of rewriting Michigan’s sentencing laws in a case involving the second-degree murder conviction of a Detroit teen who saw another teenager wearing the shirt of a rival gang, walked up and shot him five times.
Prior so-called “juvenile lifer” cases decided by the court have largely dealt with the questioned constitutionality of mandatory sentences of life in prison without parole for youth convicted of first-degree murder. The July 30 decision marks the first time the bench found a judge’s decision to sentence a defendant to a term of years in prison may also be unconstitutional for second-degree murder.
A 50-year sentence for a youth killer convicted of second-degree murder, the Democrat-nominated justices found, is “grossly disproportionate” and out of step with national trends and “does not meaningfully advance the penological goal of rehabilitation,” Justice Kimberly A. Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.
“…a sentence of 50 to 75 years’ imprisonment exceeds what is presumptively imposed on a youthful offender for the more serious offense of first-degree murder, without the benefit of the procedural protections that are provided to a youthful offender convicted of first-degree murder,” wrote Thomas, the former director of the University of Michigan Law School’s Juvenile Justice Clinic.
She reasoned that a teen sentenced to a minimum of 50 years on second-degree murder must wait 50 years for parole, while a youth convicted of first-degree murder is guaranteed consideration of their youth at sentencing and, even if sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, could be considered for parole at an earlier time than the 50-year minimum.
“The trial court must impose a sentence that satisfies constitutional requirements as described in this opinion,” Thomas wrote. It is not clear from the opinion what would be an appropriate number of years in prison for a minor convicted of second-degree murder.
Republican-nominated Justice Brian K. Zahra called the majority decision part of the “latest volley” of the court’s “continued full-scale assault on juvenile and young-adult sentencing.”
At one point, he referred to the majority as a “judiciary blinded by the sweat of an ideological effort to legislatively reform juvenile sentencing through the power of judicial fiat.”
The decision stems from a 1992 case involving James Gregory Eads, who, at 16, shot and killed 17-year-old Eric Kincaid because he was wearing the T-shirt of a rival gang. Eads was charged with first-degree murder and felony firearm and was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder and felony firearm.
Sentencing guidelines in effect at the time recommended a 12- to 25-year sentence or life in prison with the possibility of parole. The court sentenced Eads as an adult to 50 to 75 years and a consecutive two-year sentence on felony firearm.
At the time of Eads’ sentencing, Zahra noted in his dissent, the Wayne County judge said he had never departed from sentencing guidelines, but said the nature of the crime, the lack of provocation, and the fact that it was over a T-shirt caused him to levy a heavier sentence.
In addition, the sentencing judge noted that juvenile system workers reported Eads “has exhausted the facilities of any juvenile facility, and that in fact he organized a gang that was beating up other inmates…,” according to the justice’s dissenting opinion.
50 years worse than life with parole, justice writes
After other unsuccessful appeals, Eads in 2021 appealed his sentence under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision, the first of several federal and state cases that began to diminish the use of life in prison without parole for youth offenders. Miller and later decisions required the court’s consideration at sentencing and resentencing of the youthful factors that may have affected the defendant’s decision-making and the defendant’s potential for rehabilitation.
Last year, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 split decision that Eads was entitled to resentencing under two different opinions issued earlier by the Michigan Supreme Court and pertaining to juvenile lifers.
“The majority reasoned that the sentencing judge failed to consider defendant’s youth as a mitigating factor and, instead, used the characteristics of youth that defendant exhibited as aggravating factors to justify a lengthy term-of-years sentencing,” Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.
But a dissenting Court of Appeals judge argued Eads should fall under the juvenile lifer case law. He noted that the juvenile lifer cases so far have applied only to mandatory or statutory sentences, not to discretionary and individualized sentences judges might impose.
In the July 30 majority opinion, Thomas reasoned that a 50- to 75-year prison sentence for second-degree murder is more severe than a sentence of life with the possibility of parole. Typically, someone serving parolable life would be eligible for parole 10 to 15 years in, she noted, but Eads will not be eligible until 2040, 48 years into his sentence.
Other courts, she noted, have concluded that a sentence that causes someone to wait about 50 years for parole eligibility amounts to “a de facto life sentence,” which would be considered unconstitutionally “cruel or unusual” under current juvenile lifers case law.
“It is unnecessary to definitively draw a line in this case as to what we consider to be a de facto life sentence,” Thomas wrote. “But we find it highly pertinent that the 50-year minimum sentence imposed here creates, at minimum, a good possibility that a youthful offender will not live long enough to even be eligible for parole.”
The court’s declaration that a 50-year sentence is a “de facto life sentence” creates an unworkable standard, Zahra wrote in his dissent, and prompts “a host of difficult and unanswerable questions that will undoubtedly form the basis on which this court will, in future cases, continue its assault on juvenile and young-adult sentencing.”
“At some point, this court will be forced to draw a hard line: X years is too many, but Y is permissible,” Zahra wrote. “Such a definitive line will most certainly be arbitrary. Until that holding comes, lower courts will be operating in the dark.”
Reporting by Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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