Life without parole, or a juvenile death sentence?

• Author: Gottuso, Kyle

1. Introduction

   In the recent case of State v. Andrews, the Supreme Court of Missouri faced the issue of whether sentencing a fifteen-year-old juvenile to imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole violated the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment. (1) The court ultimately decided two issues: first, whether Missouri's juvenile certification proceeding violated the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Apprendi v. New Jersey, (2) and second, whether the sentence was inherently unconstitutional. (3) In deciding the first issue, the court interpreted the scope of the Apprendi decision as not applying to the state's juvenile certification process. (4) As for the second issue, the court held that it was constitutional to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole once that individual has been certified as an adult and has been convicted of first-degree murder. (5) By ruling in this manner, the Supreme Court of Missouri has ensured that the only punishment available to juveniles convicted of first-degree murder is a life in jail without any possibility of probation or parole regardless of any rehabilitation by the prisoner.

   Looking ahead, the decision in Andrews could prove consequential in that it places an unbelievably high importance on the juvenile certification process, which is a process done without any jury determination. While the court was likely correct in interpreting Apprendi and subsequent case law, the result of the court's ruling is that a single judge will decide whether juvenile murderers, like Antonio Andrews, are to be tried as adults and thus face life in prison. Furthermore, in deciding that juveniles can be sentenced to life in prison, the court has virtually done away with the penological goal of rehabilitation.

   Part II of this Note will look at the court's decision to allow juveniles to be sentenced to life without parole. In doing so, this Note will outline the policies underlying the U.S. Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. Next, Part III of this Note will survey more broadly the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the Eighth Amendment in terms of life without parole as well as death penalty cases. Part IV of this Note will then look at the reasoning of the majority and the dissent in the instant case. Finally, Part V of this Note will attempt to reconcile the reasoning of the instant case with the "evolving standards of decency" that mark Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, ultimately concluding that the Andrews court arrived at the wrong decision under the Eighth Amendment and appropriate precedent at the expense of Missouri's youth. In the end, it may come down to the Missouri legislature to correct this problem by updating Missouri's statute that punishes juvenile murderers.

2. Facts and Holding

   Fifteen-year-old Antonio Andrews and three of his friends were hanging out together in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 15, 2007. (6) Andrews and one of his friends, Lamont Johnson, made the ill-fated decision to walk to a restaurant to pick up some food. (7) In yet another ill-fated decision, Andrews asked for and received from one of his friends a .38 caliber pistol. (8) On their way to the restaurant, officer Norvelle Brown tried to stop and question the two young boys. (9) For whatever reason, possibly because Andrews was carrying the pistol, the boys fled. (10) Officer Brown pursued the boys in his patrol car, frustrating Andrews and leading him to tell his friend, Johnson, that he was "tired of [Officer Brown] chasing us." (11) Andrews stopped in a vacant lot and waited for Officer Brown. (12) When Officer Brown arrived at the lot and exited his patrol car, Andrews pulled out the .38 caliber pistol and shot officer Brown in the back, killing him. (13)

   At the time of the killing of officer Brown, Antonio Andrews was fifteen years old, and thus the Missouri juvenile justice system had exclusive original jurisdiction over him. (14) However, under Missouri law, a juvenile may be certified as an adult, and the court "may in its discretion, dismiss the petition and transfer the child to a court of general jurisdiction for prosecution under the general law." (15) Andrews was subsequently certified as an adult on December 26, 2007, and was sent to be prosecuted under the general laws of Missouri. (16)

   A grand jury indicted Andrews for first-degree murder and armed criminal action on January 31, 2008. (17) On August 12, 2009, the jury returned a guilty verdict on both counts at his trial. (18) After Andrews waived jury sentencing, the circuit court sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and to a consecutive fifty-year prison sentence for armed criminal action. (19)

   Andrews appealed his conviction based on two constitutional challenges.20 First, Andrews argued that Missouri's scheme of permitting courts to certify juveniles as adults for criminal trials violated the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Apprendi. (21) Apprendi held that any fact that increases the defendant's punishment is an element of a crime. (22) As such, the defendant has a right to submit that element to a jury, and the state must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. (23) Because certification increases the maximum punishment for a juvenile, Andrews argued that Apprendi should apply, and that whether one is certified as an adult should be submitted to and decided by a jury. (24) Second, Andrews argued that Missouri Revised Statutes section 565.020 was invalid because it violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.25 Andrews relied upon Roper v. Simmons, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited a state from sentencing a juvenile to death. (26)

   The Supreme Court of Missouri first rejected Andrews's claim that the Missouri juvenile certification scheme violates Apprendi based on two lines of reasoning. (27) First, the court stated that a juvenile has no Sixth Amendment right to a jury during juvenile adjudication. (28) Since there is no right to a jury trial during this proceeding, the court concluded that Apprendi did not apply. (29) In a more interesting line of reasoning, the court stated that Missouri's certification scheme did not expose Andrews to an enhanced sentence, thus rendering Apprendi inapposite. (30) Instead of exposing Andrews to a harsher punishment, the court concluded that certification merely determined that his case would be heard under general jurisdiction and not governed by the juvenile courts. (31)

   Next, by applying the "evolving standards of decency" test, the court also rejected Andrews's Eighth Amendment challenge. (32) Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, in deciding whether a criminal sentence violates the Eighth Amendment, a court is to look at "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" to determine if the punishment at issue conforms to those standards. (33) Andrews relied on two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Graham v. Florida (34) and Roper v. Simmons (35) to show that his sentence violated these standards. (36) The court found that Andrews's reliance on Graham was flawed because Graham concerned sentencing juveniles to life without parole for non-homicide crimes, whereas Andrews was found guilty of the homicide offense of first-degree murder. (37) As for Roper, that case, read narrowly, only prohibits sentencing juveniles to death, and says nothing as to life without parole. (38)

   Andrews also argued that the "mandatory life without parole" punishment imposed by Missouri Revised Statutes section 565.020 was against the "evolving standards of decency" because the statute does not allow the sentencer to consider the offender's age. (39) The court again rejected this argument and held that Andrews "failed to demonstrate that Missouri's imposition of mandatory life without parole on a juvenile for committing first degree murder clearly and undoubtedly violates the Eighth Amendment." (40) For the reasons above, the Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the sentence of life without parole for Antonio Andrews. (41)

   Ill. Legal Background

   This section first will provide a historical overview of the U.S. Supreme Court's analysis of the Eighth Amendment and its use of the "evolving standards of decency" test. Next, this section will consider the differences in the Eighth Amendment analyses between death penalty cases and life without parole cases in terms of juvenile offenders. Courts have consistently held that "death is different," and this concept will be explored. While the instant case does not deal with the death penalty directly, it is important to understand that the death penalty is different in kind from life without parole and how that affects the Eighth Amendment analysis. Finally, this section will briefly look at Apprendi and a defendant's right to jury determination of particular facts.

   1. Eighth Amendment Analysis

      The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from inflicting cruel and unusual punishment upon convicted criminals. (42) This provision of the Eighth Amendment has been incorporated to apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. (43) While it is understood that the Eighth Amendment bans "cruel and unusual punishment," there is much debate about what these words mean. The debate seems to focus on whether the provision was intended only to govern modes of punishment or intended also to include a proportionality principle, prohibiting prison sentences disproportionate to the crime. (44)

      The controlling test in determining whether the Eighth Amendment has been violated is to look to the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." (45) However, the debate about mode versus proportionality lives inside this question. Some Supreme Court Justices and scholars have found...