(usnews.com) At the age of 16, Graham and an accomplice robbed a restaurant, a crime for which he served a year behind bars. In 2004, at age 17, he was sentenced to life without parole after he violated the terms of his probation by committing another robbery, this time with a gun.
Joe Sullivan, meanwhile, was convicted of sexual battery against a 72-year-old womanafter committing a burglary when he was 13 years old. In the two years before this conviction, Sullivan, who is mentally disabled, had been found guilty of 17 criminal offenses, including several serious felonies. The sexual battery conviction was based on the testimony of two of his older codefendants, who then received lighter sentences. At the trial, which ended with a life sentence, Sullivan was represented by an attorney who has since been suspended from practicing law.
Legal experts say these two examples of life sentences for juveniles are particularly noteworthy. “What separates these cases from cases of life sentences for [other] children is that they received the sentences for crimes short of homicide,” says Elizabeth Scott, a professor at Columbia University Law School. (more...)
If this is all these boys did, this should not be a life sentence. Anybody have more info on these cases?
Read this as well: “High court justices to ponder life imprisonment for juveniles”
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