Graham v. Florida
| Graham v. Florida | ||||
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| Negotiated November 9, 2009 |
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| Decided May 17, 2010 |
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| facts | ||||
| Certiorari to clarify whether a life sentence without the possibility of a pardon for minor offenders violates the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment enshrined in the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution . | ||||
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| Life sentences with no pardon are unconstitutional for underage offenders for all crimes except murder . | ||||
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| Applied Law | ||||
| 8. Amendment to the United States Constitution |
Graham v. Florida is a US Supreme Court case on the question of whether, and in what cases, life imprisonment with no pardon is unconstitutional for underage offenders.
background
Terrance Jamar Graham was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for burglary and armed robbery in the US state of Florida at the age of 16 . After his release, he was again convicted and this time as a repeat offender ( recidivist ) - again for armed robbery - sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of pardon. Graham appealed against the judgment appealed, on the grounds that a life sentence without parole is contrary to the 8th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States enshrined prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment ( cruel and unusual punishment ). His lawsuit was dismissed by an appeals court and Florida Supreme Court. Graham then appealed to the United States Supreme Court , which accepted the case for final judgment.
judgment
With a majority of six of the nine judges' votes, the court ruled that life imprisonment for underage offenders for all crimes except murder is a violation of the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments and is therefore unconstitutional . Life sentences for minors have not been viewed as unusual or cruel for a long time . At the same time, however, the development of moral standards in one's own country and in the rest of the world must also be taken into account. At the time of the judgment, there were only 129 child offenders in the entire United States (77 of them in Florida) who had been sentenced to life imprisonment with no pardon despite having committed no murder. Although the law allows this penalty to be imposed in many states, only a few states actually apply these laws. In the rest of the world, too, the imposition of this penalty was largely rejected. In addition, minors must be assumed to be less liable to guilt and the sentencing must be proportionate to this, which - except in the case of murder - is not the case with a life sentence without the possibility of pardon.
The penalty of life imprisonment with no pardon for underage offenders who have not committed murder is therefore considered a cruel and unusual punishment in their own country and the rest of the world and is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution.