Recently, the Texas legislature passed Senate Bill 2 during the second special session in response to a 2012 Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama. That decision has been seen as a continuation of a trend in which our country’s highest court recognizes that youthful offenders are different from adult offenders. In Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the Court held that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death, and in Graham v. Florida in 2010, it held that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide cases. In the 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision, the Court held that the 8th Amendment (that’s the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment) forbids mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of homicide. Currently in Texas, a 17 year old convicted of homicide faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole. Under Miller v. Alabama, this sentence is void because a person under 18 cannot face a mandatory sentence of life without parole.
This Supreme Court decision has a unique impact on Texas. From a federal standpoint, a person reaches the age of majority at age 18. That’s also the age you become an adult in most states. In Texas and about a dozen other states, you become an adult at age 17. So while Texas actually already abolished life without parole for juveniles back in 2009, that change did not apply to 17 year olds who are technically adults. Consequently, when the Supreme Court held that states can’t have mandatory sentences of life without parole for anyone under 18, Texas ended up with this category of 17 year olds who are in a sort of no man’s land. As a result, if a 17 year old commits murder, the only statutory sentence available is an unconstitutional one.
This bill was actually filed during the regular session and passed the Senate but never made it to the floor for a vote in the House. Governor Perry placed the issue on the agenda for the first special session, and an identical version of the bill was introduced and passed by the Senate. Amendments were made in the House, so it had to be returned to the Senate for another vote. A filibuster occurred in the Senate to kill an abortion related bill, and this legislation also died in that process. So in the second special session, the same Senate Bill has been filed yet again, and as of Monday, it had passed both chambers and was sent to the governor’s office.
The Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama, said that an individual under 18 could not face a mandatory sentence of life without parole. In order to make Texas law constitutional, legislators dropped the mandatory sentence of life without parole down to a mandatory sentence of life, which includes the possibility of parole. The state had already done this back in 2009 for younger kids, but this bill extends that policy to 17 year olds.
Senate Bill 2 could be viewed as a victory but also as a lost opportunity. Certainly taking steps to turn an unconstitutional law into a constitutional one should be viewed as a win. The fact that various players in our criminal justice system are no longer in limbo, that’s also a type of victory. Additionally, the legislature took life without the possibility of parole off the table completely. Arguably, they could have passed constitutional muster without doing that because it was mandatory life without parole that the Supreme Court struck down. However, Senate Bill 2 basically exchanges one mandatory sentence for another. We’ve exchanged life without parole for life with the possibility of parole. In Texas, that opportunity for parole doesn’t even come up until the prisoner has served 40 years, and good behavior is not a consideration. The legislature missed the opportunity to seriously consider a broader range of punishment and more individualized sentencing.
Choosing a sentencing scheme is a complicated issue. With mandatory sentences, everybody knows what awaits them if they’re convicted and we remove the possibility that punishments could vary drastically from courtroom to courtroom. However, a one-size-fits-all model is not necessarily the best policy choice. For example, consider the case of Sara Kruzan out in California who was forced to work as a child prostitute at the age of 13. When she was 16, she shot and killed the pimp who had abused her for years and was convicted of first degree murder. Are we certain that this girl deserves the same sentence as a 17 year old who robs a convenience store and shoots the clerk? A more individualized sentencing scheme would give the judge and jury a chance to weigh all the factors and deliver a just sentence that falls somewhere within a statutory range. Not all criminals are the same, and we should consider all the facts and punish the individual accordingly.
Listen below for our commentary on the changes to juvenile sentencing in Texas.
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