Freedom Line Blog

We at CFIF have noted before that death penalty opponents are unlikely to stop at the death penalty if their misplaced abolition movement succeeded.  Rather, we have long predicted that they would immediately move toward abolishing life imprisonment, using the same arguments that they use against the death penalty now.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long.  In two cases to be heard this term, the Supreme Court will determine whether life imprisonment for convicts under the age of 18 constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

In one case, Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life in prison in 1989 after committing 17 prior offenses that included assault, burglary and even animal cruelty, even though he was only 13 at the time.  In the second case, 16-year-old Terrance Graham was sentenced to life in prison for armed robbery after a similarly extensive criminal record.  People of reasonable minds can disagree on whether they would have imposed the penalty of life imprisonment for someone of that age, but that isn’t the question.  Rather, the question is whether judges should be prohibited in every case from imposing a penalty that can protect society against the criminal menace presented by some incorrigible criminals.

If soft-on-crime activists succeed, what is next?