{"id":26794,"date":"2017-06-13T08:08:22","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T13:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=26794"},"modified":"2017-06-13T16:12:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T21:12:29","slug":"dark-clouds-on-the-horizon-for-graham-v-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2017\/06\/dark-clouds-on-the-horizon-for-graham-v-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Clouds on the Horizon for Graham v. Florida?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida<\/em><\/a> that a juvenile sentenced to life in prison for a nonhomicide crime must be given \u201csome meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.\u201d But what makes a release opportunity \u201cmeaningful\u201d? The Court\u2019s decision yesterday in\u00a0Virginia v. LeBlanc<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>suggests that the threshold may not be as high as some hoped.<\/p>\n

LeBlanc was convicted of committing a rape when he was 16 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of conventional parole. On the face of it, this would seem a clear violation of\u00a0Graham<\/em>. However, in federal habeas proceedings, the state argued that LeBlanc would eventually have his \u201cmeaningful opportunity\u201d through a geriatric release program, which permits the release of some inmates who are age sixty or older.<\/p>\n

Since many other states also have geriatric release programs, the issue presented by\u00a0LeBlanc<\/em> has important, national ramifications for the strength of the Eighth Amendment right recognized in\u00a0Graham<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A district judge and then a panel of the Fourth Circuit held in LeBlanc\u2019s favor. The Fourth Circuit noted the highly discretionary nature of geriatric release under Virginia law, which effectively permits the releasing authority to disregard an applicant\u2019s \u201cdemonstrated maturity and rehabilitation,\u201d contrary to Graham<\/em>.\u00a0841 F.3d 256, 269 (4th Cir. 2016).<\/p>\n

Yet, the Supreme Court reversed yesterday in a brief\u00a0per\u00a0<\/em>curiam\u00a0<\/i>opinion. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Court did not purport to decide the issue squarely on the merits, but instead ruled that the Fourth Circuit had not shown the full deference to state court determinations that is required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. In habeas review, a federal court should not overturn a state court decision unless it is \u201ccontrary to, or involved an unreasonable<\/em> application of clearly established federal law.\u201d In deciding that this standard was not satisfied in\u00a0LeBlanc<\/em>, the Court emphasized that it held \u201conly that the Virginia trial court\u2019s ruling . . . was not objectively unreasonable in light of this Court\u2019s current case law,\u201d leaving open the possibility that the Court\u2019s case law might some day more clearly preclude Virginia\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

Still, I am surprised that not one justice dissented in support of the Fourth Circuit\u2019s well-reasoned decision. There seems to me a good argument that Virginia\u2019s reliance on geriatric release was indeed unreasonable under\u00a0Graham<\/em>. As the Fourth Circuit observed,\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>requires an opportunity to obtain release \u201cbased on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation,\u201d but nothing in Virginia\u2019s program requires release on these grounds, no matter how compelling an inmate\u2019s case for maturity and rehabilitation is. Indeed, more than 95% of geriatric release denials in Virginia are based on the severity of the crime, 841 F.3d at 270, which may indicate that the releasing authority pays little attention to what offenders do with themselves during their subsequent years or decades in prison. This would run directly contrary to what had seemed to me the basic thrust of\u00a0Graham<\/em>: that kids who commit crimes must be given an opportunity eventually to move beyond the mistakes of their youth.<\/p>\n

Taken at its word,\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>seems to insist that states do more than merely provide the formality of a procedure by which juveniles might theoretically obtain release, but that in practice never or only very rarely results in release. The Court\u2019s failure in LeBlanc<\/em>\u00a0to consider whether geriatric release in Virginia is such an empty formality will only encourage other states to try to circumvent\u00a0Graham\u00a0<\/em>in similar ways.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences<\/a>. For more on\u00a0Graham<\/em>, see my article\u00a0Not Just Kid Stuff?<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida that a juvenile sentenced to life in prison for a nonhomicide crime must be given \u201csome meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.\u201d But what makes a release opportunity \u201cmeaningful\u201d? The Court\u2019s decision yesterday in\u00a0Virginia v. LeBlanc\u00a0suggests that the threshold may […]<\/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":[30,122,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-public","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26794","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=26794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}