WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS LWOP SENTENCE FOR 14 YEAR OLD

At age 14 Omer Ninham committed a vicious murder. While accompanied by four of his friends he purposelessly dropped a 13 year old boy from the fifth floor of a parking facility. The kid fell to the ground and died. Ninham was tried as an adult in Wisconsin and given the maximum sentence for an intentional homicide–life without parole (LWOP).

The Supreme Court has dictated a two step process in determining whether the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause is violated:

First, the Supreme Court considers “‘objective indicia of society’s standards, as expressed in legislative enactments and state practice’ to determine whether there is a national consensus against the sentencing practice at issue” . . . Second, notwithstanding the objective evidence of society’s standards, the Supreme Court “determine[s] in the exercise of its own independent judgment whether the punishment in question violates the Constitution.”

The majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court found that the Eighth Amendment was not violated. It ruled that there is no national consensus opposing the use of LWOP for teenagers in intentional homicide cases and using its own judgment it did not find a constitutional violation.

The United States Supreme Court has found that in determining whether there is an Eighth violation teenagers must be treated differently from adults. Punishment must be proportionate to the offense. Teenagers are less culpable than adults and therefore, at least in the cases of the death penalty and LWOP in nonhomicide cases teenagers are treated differently. The US Supreme Court has given three reasons:

1) Juveniles possess a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, qualities which often result in impulsive actions and decisions; (2) juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and peer pressure; and (3) a juvenile’s character is not as well formed as that of an adult.

As a result, regardless of how horrendous the crime is juveniles cannot be considered among the worst offenders and should not be given the greatest punishment. To do so would not equate the crime with the punishment.

While the Wisconsin Supreme Court followed the Supreme Court precedent and accepted its holdings it failed to fully consider the legitimate consequence of the findings. If juveniles are immature and if they have have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility it is illogical to sentence them to LWOP. As they grow older and become more mature and responsible the protection of society may no longer require their incarceration. Yet by denying them parole they will remain locked up even if the penal objectives which led to their incarceration no longer exist.

Of course merely offering the chance of parole does not mean that every juvenile sentence to life in prison will earn parole. But by denying them the chance to earn parole Wisconsin in refusing to recognize that some of the juveniles will eventually mature and accept responsibility to the point where they will no longer need incarceration.