{"id":18762,"date":"2012-10-22T15:44:56","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T20:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=18762"},"modified":"2012-10-22T16:21:16","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T21:21:16","slug":"seventh-circuit-affirms-life-sentence-notwithstanding-supreme-courts-recent-eighth-amendment-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/10\/seventh-circuit-affirms-life-sentence-notwithstanding-supreme-courts-recent-eighth-amendment-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventh Circuit Affirms Life Sentence Notwithstanding Supreme Court\u2019s Recent Eighth Amendment Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the time of its decision in\u00a0Harmelin v. Michigan<\/em>\u00a0(1991), affirming a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a drug trafficking offense, through its decision in\u00a0Ewing v. California<\/em>\u00a0(2003), affirming a de facto life sentence for shoplifting, the Supreme Court showed little interest in using the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as a basis to limit the length of prison sentences. \u00a0More recently, however, the Court has begun to extend the principles it developed to regulate capital sentencing into the noncapital realm. \u00a0First, in\u00a0Graham v. Florida\u00a0<\/em>(2010)<\/a>, the Court banned life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide. \u00a0Then, in\u00a0Miller v. Alabama\u00a0<\/em>(2012)<\/a>, the Court banned the use of mandatory \u201cLWOP\u201d sentences for all juveniles \u2014 even those convicted of homicide.<\/p>\n

\n

The Court\u2019s trajectory seems to threaten\u00a0Harmelin<\/em>. \u00a0Even if the logic of\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>permits LWOP for drug trafficking, the logic of\u00a0Miller\u00a0<\/em>arguably requires a consideration of mitigating circumstances before the sentence can be imposed \u2014 prohibits, in other words, LWOP as a statutory minimum for a drug offense.<\/p>\n

While the Supreme Court might eventually reach this destination, the Seventh Circuit has decided not to try to get there first. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier today, in\u00a0United States v. Ousley<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(No. 11-2760) (Manion, J.), the court rejected an Eighth Amendment challenge to\u00a021 U.S.C. \u00a7 841(b)(1)(A), which, in pertinent part, requires a life sentence for certain crack offenders with two prior drug felonies. \u00a0Despite Ousley\u2019s reliance on\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Miller<\/em>, the Seventh Circuit correctly noted that neither decision expressly overturned either\u00a0Harmelin\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Ewing<\/em>. \u00a0Constrained to treat those older cases as good law, the Seventh Circuit seemed to interpret\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Miller\u00a0<\/em>narrowly as decisions about\u00a0juvenile<\/em>\u00a0sentencing.<\/p>\n

Ousley did have an interesting argument to try to distinguish\u00a0Harmelin<\/em>. \u00a0Since his life sentence was based on a\u00a0crack\u00a0<\/em>offense, and would not have been mandatory for a powder cocaine offense involving the same drug quantity, Ousley argued that his sentence runs counter to an emerging national consensus against crack-powder sentencing disparities. \u00a0However, the Seventh Circuit did not find such a consensus; although the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 softened crack-powder disparities, the Act did not eliminate them.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Seventh Circuit Updates.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the time of its decision in\u00a0Harmelin v. Michigan\u00a0(1991), affirming a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a drug trafficking offense, through its decision in\u00a0Ewing v. California\u00a0(2003), affirming a de facto life sentence for shoplifting, the Supreme Court showed little interest in using the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as a basis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,74,122,23,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-public","category-seventh-circuit","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}