SCOTUS rules against juvenile sentenced to life without parole

WASHINGTON » The Supreme Court on Thursday reversed its recent movement toward leniency for minors convicted of serious crimes and instead said judges need not specifically find a juvenile murderer beyond rehabilitation before sentencing him to a lifetime in prison.

Former president Donald Trump’s three Supreme Court nominees were key to the 6-to-3 ruling, which was written by one of them, Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The “argument that the sentencer must make a finding of permanent incorrigibility is inconsistent with the court’s precedents,” Kavanaugh wrote. The court upheld the life-without-parole sentence a Mississippi court imposed on a 15-yearold who stabbed his grandfather to death in a dispute over the boy’s girlfriend.

All that is constitutionally required is for the judge to have discretion and consider the defendant’s youth, Kavanaugh wrote.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor replied in a biting dissent that the decision will mean “far too many juvenile offenders will be sentenced to die in prison.”

Limiting that punishment only to those beyond redemption was the very point of the court’s previous rulings, she wrote, arguing the majority undermined those decisions without acknowledging the change.

“Such an abrupt break from precedent demands ‘special justification,’ ” Sotomayor wrote, taking the words from a Kavanaugh opinion written last term. Because the majority did not provide one, she wrote, “the Court is fooling no one.”

The case could be representative of changes the court’s fortified conservative majority will make now that Trump’s nominees fill seats once held by a moderate and a liberal justice.

Kavanaugh in 2018 replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had played a key role in the rulings on juvenile offenders. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was in the majority in all of the decisions that granted more leniency, and her spot on the court has been filled by conservative Amy Coney

Barrett.

In those previous decisions, when it contemplated how the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment applies to juveniles, the court’s movement had been in one direction.

In 2005, the court ended capital punishment for those whose crimes were committed before age 18. In 2010, it barred life without parole in non-homicide crimes.

In 2012, it forbade mandatory life-without-parole sentences even for murder, in Miller v. Alabama. And four years later, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the court said those sentenced under the old rules could challenge their permanent imprisonment.

That decision said life without parole should be reserved for “the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.”

In Michigan, county prosecutors have been filing notices for resentencing in accordance with the Hill v. Whitmer class action settlement (2016), which gave prosecutors a deadline of earlier this year to review the “juvenile lifer” sentences and commit to a timeline for resentencing hearings for eligible individuals. The State’s settlement was made in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, a ruling that retroactively banned sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders, but one that still allows for such sentences only in the most extreme cases.

“The Supreme Court’s opinion in Jones v Mississippi should not impact the Hill v Whitmer class action filings,” said Assistant Defender/Juvenile Lifer Unit Manager Tina Olson, of the State Appellate Defender Office. “While Jones holds that sentencing courts are not required to make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility for a juvenile facing a possible life without parole sentence, the decision leaves in place the Miller and Montgomery cases which preceded Jones. We expect Michigan’s juvenile lifer resentencings to continue under our current statutory scheme.”

LANSING » Michigan’s elections board deadlocked Thursday on certifying a veto-proof initiative that would enable the Republican-led Legislature to wipe from the books a law Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used to issue sweeping pandemic orders last year.

The 2-2 vote means proponents of the ballot drive will go to court.

Democrats on the Board of State Canvassers voted not to certify the citizen-initiated measure despite a recommendation by the state elections bureau, which determined Unlock Michigan collected 460,00 valid signatures — more than the roughly 340,000 needed. Democrats called for further investigation and new petition rules a day after Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said investigators found “unsavory practices and sleazy tactics” but nothing that would stand up in court as crimes.

“I’m concerned about the validity of some of these signatures ... how these signatures were gathered,” Democrat Julie Matuzak said. “We are the gatekeepers of election integrity.”

Republicans supported certification.

“We’re just shutting down, and I don’t think we should shut down,” said chair Norman Shinkle. “They got well more than they need as far as signatures go.”

For months, the Democratic governor used the emergency-powers law to order and keep intact restrictions on the economy to reduce the spread of COVID-19. The Michigan Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in October, but Unlock Michigan wants to repeal it to prevent a future court from deciding differently.

Since the ruling, Whitmer has turned to the state health department to keep intact a mask requirement and to tighten and ease restrictions under a separate law.

LANSING » Former Michigan health director Robert Gordon will testify next week before a legislative committee about his abrupt departure from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration, following the panel’s vote to subpoena him Thursday.

Gordon ordered coronavirus restrictions for more than three months after the Democratic governor lost powers in a court ruling. He resigned in January as director of the state Department of Health and Human Services and received $155,000 in a separation agreement signed by the chief lawyer in Whitmer’s office.

The reason for his apparent forced exit is unclear. Whitmer has largely been mum. Gordon has said officials disagreed on policy and that the governor “deserves a health director with whom she is comfortable.”

He quit the same day he signed an order allowing restaurants to reopen for indoor dining after a monthslong shutdown following a resurgence of COVID-19. Amid criticism, the state and Gordon amended the severance deal last month to remove a confidentiality clause.

“I am committed to ensuring a more transparent and honest government,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Steve Johnson, a Wayland Republican, said in a statement. An agreement ”signed in the dark for exorbitant sums of money is neither transparent nor honest.”

The GOP-controlled panel voted 6-3 along party lines to issue the subpoena.

ONTONAGON » A former priest who left Michigan decades ago pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing teens in the Upper Peninsula in the 1980s, the attorney general’s office said. Gary Jacobs, 75, pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County and will serve at least eight years in prison before he’s eligible for parole, authorities said.

“This sentence will not erase the pain Mr. Jacobs inflicted on those who trusted him. But I hope our pursuit of justice can offer some sense of relief as their vulnerability led to this accountability,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

Jacobs is scheduled to make a similar plea deal in Dickinson County on May 3, Nessel said. A message seeking comment from his attorney wasn’t immediately returned. The Diocese of Marquette has said Jacobs was removed from ministry in 1988 and left the state. He was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he was charged in January 2020.