Court refuses appeal for man jailed for 241 years

• The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a man who committed robbery and other crimes on a single day when he was 16 and now isn’t eligible for parole until he’s 112 years old.

The justices on Monday left in place defendant Bobby Bostic’s 241-year sentence. Lawyers for Bostic, 39, argued that the prison term violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a press release, “Mr. Bostic should get a chance to show that crimes he committed at 16 do not define him. The Constitution demands nothing less.”

Bostic, from St Louis, Missouri, was 16 when he and another man robbed people delivering Christmas presents to needy people near his neighbourhood.

One victim was grazed by a bullet fired by Bostic.

He was arrested months later and refused a plea deal that would have seen him sentenced to 30 years with a chance of parole.

At his trial he was found guilty of 17 counts, including eight counts of armed criminal action, and three counts of robbery.

Sentencing him, Judge Evelyn Baker said she would make an example out of him. “I hope this will be a message to the other young men and women out there,” she said. She imposed the sentences consecutively.

“You made your choice, and you’re gonna die with your choice. Because Bobby Bostic — you will die in the Department of Corrections,” said the judge.

But Baker has since changed her mind.

This year she wrote that she now supported a group of 26 former judges and prosecutors who had signed an amicus brief in support of Bostic.

“As the sentencing judge, I hope they release him,” she told theintercept.com news site.

Writing in The Washington Post, Baker said, “I thought I was faulting Bostic for his crimes. Looking back, I see that I was punishing him both for what he did and for his immaturity.

“I am now retired, and I deeply regret what I did.”

She added, “While I did not technically give him ‘life without parole,’ I placed on his shoulders a prison term of so many years combined that there is no way he will ever be considered for release.

He won’t become eligible for parole until he is 112 years old — which means he will die in prison, regardless of whether he rehabilitates himself or changes as he grows older.”

In opposing the appeal, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley said a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed life sentences for people under 18 who didn’t kill anyone applies only to a sentence for one crime — not to consecutive sentences.