Life without parole unconstitutional for ’emerging adults,’ split SJC rules

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A defendant convicted of committing first-degree murder at the age of 18 could not be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, the Supreme Judicial Court has ruled in a 4-3 decision.

In Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 466 Mass. 655 (2013) (Diatchenko I), the SJC concluded that sentencing a juvenile to life without parole in any circumstance would violate the state Constitution.

The case before the court, Commonwealth v. Mattis, presented it with the question of whether that standard also should apply to “emerging adults” who are ages 18 through 20 at the time they commit a crime.

“Based on precedent and contemporary standards of decency in the Commonwealth and elsewhere, we conclude that the answer is yes,” Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd wrote for a majority of the court.

“Here, … we must invalidate that portion of G.L.c. 265, §2(a), that denies parole eligibility to those from eighteen to twenty years old. … Likewise, we also must invalidate that portion of the parole statute, G.L.c. 127, §133A, that denies parole to those from eighteen to twenty years of age,” Budd wrote.

“The power to ‘define a crime and ordain its punishment’ is an exclusively legislative function, and ‘in judging legislative determinations of crimes and punishments, we exercise our powers of review with great caution,'” Lowy wrote, citing relevant case law. “For the crime of murder in the first degree, the Legislature has deemed the mandatory imposition of life without the possibility of parole to be the appropriate punishment for adults eighteen and older convicted of this offense. While we have an obligation to intervene when the Legislature acts unconstitutionally, unless the punishment the Legislature imposes is ‘so disproportionate’ that it ‘shocks the conscience and offends fundamental notions of human dignity’ … we must exercise restraint and uphold it.”

The 153-page decision is Lawyers Weekly No. 10-003-24.