Sept. 7
USA:
US court allows life terms for juveniles
A US federal appeals court today held that juveniles convicted of murder can be
sentenced to life in prison without parole, seeking to settle a lingering
debate over how the courts punish minors who commit serious offences.
The US Supreme Court has already ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to
death and that they also can't be sentenced to life in prison without parole
for rape and other non-homicide offences.
The ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today, though, upheld life
sentences for juveniles convicted of murder.
The decision came in the case against Kenneth Loggins, who was convicted in
Alabama of killing a hitchhiker in 1994 and originally sentenced to die.
He was 17 at the time of the killing, so his punishment was reduced to life
without parole because the Supreme Court banned such executions in 2005.
His lawyers had urged the 3-judge panel to broaden a 2010 Supreme Court ruling
to include murders. That 5-4 ruling held that juveniles cannot be sentenced to
life in prison without parole if they haven't killed anyone, and ordered the
courts to allow them a "meaningful opportunity to obtain release."
But prosecutors argued that the high court took pains to specify the ruling
only applied in non-homicide cases, and the 11th Circuit said it found no
reason to toss out Loggins' prison sentence.
The decision, written by Circuit Judge Ed Carnes, said "there's nothing in law
or logic" to support the argument that a state shouldn't be allowed to impose
the next most severe punishment if a death penalty sentence is banned.
The 11th Circuit has jurisdiction over federal cases in Georgia, Alabama and
Florida, but lawyers in other areas will likely use the opinion to back up
their own arguments.
Mr Carnes had been the head of Alabama's capital punishment unit before he
joined the court in 1992. He also wrote that the state shouldn't be blocked
from imposing the prison sentence because it "lacked the clairvoyance to know
that the Supreme Court would do an about-face and rule out death sentences for
17-year-old murderers."
In the decision, he said only a few jurisdictions have repealed laws permitting
life without parole sentences for homicides committed by juveniles, and that
the national consensus seems to be in favour of keeping those laws on the
books.
"The long-term national trend is not away from life without parole sentences
for homicides committed by juveniles but toward them," he said.
The ruling comes in a case involving the gruesome murder of a woman, who was
picked up by Loggins and three other teens and taken to a secluded rural area
as she was travelling to her mother's home in Louisiana.
One of the men hit the woman in the head with a beer bottle and then tackled
her when she tried to run away, and all four savagely kicked her, the court
said. When they realised she was still alive after the vicious beating, Loggins
stood on her throat until she died, the ruling said.
Loggins and two others later mutilated the body by cutting off her fingers and
thumbs and removing part of a lung. They were arrested after one of the teens
was reported to have been showing one of the victim's severed fingers to
friends.
The 3 others - who were 19, 17 and 16 at the time of the killing - were also
convicted of the slaying and sentenced to either death or life in prison.
(source: Adelaide Now)
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