By Elana Bildner
In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that “a faithful application of the holding in Miller, as clarified in Montgomery,” requires a presumption against life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders, which may be overcome only if the Commonwealth proves a child’s incorrigibility by “competent evidence” and beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Court specifically noted its “intention that adherence to these procedures will curtail the imposition of illegal sentences of life without parole by sentencing courts.” This is an especially important statement in Pennsylvania, one of four states with the largest populations of juveniles serving life without parole. Pennsylvania now joins a broader chorus of states moving to either end juvenile life-without-parole sentences entirely, or severely curtail their use.
Qu’eed Batts had initially received a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for a crime that occurred when he was 14 years old. Miller was decided during the direct appeal of his case. In 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded his case for resentencing, holding that the sentencing court could, after evaluating the Miller criteria, impose either life without parole or life with parole. At resentencing, Batts was resentenced to life without parole.
On appeal of Batts’ sentence, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court re-examined the Commonwealth’s sentencing procedures in the wake of Montgomery. In its June 26, 2017 decision, it concluded that the General Assembly’s failure to implement a scheme to bring sentences in compliance with Miller and Montgomery warranted that the court exercise its “constitutional power of judicial administration to devise a procedure” to implement the decisions in the state. It explained:
More than a year has passed since the Montgomery decision, and it has been five years since the High Court decided Miller. The General Assembly has not taken any appreciable steps to create a separate sentencing statute or to revise the existing law so that it applies to juveniles convicted of first-degree murder prior to Miller. In the meantime, several hundred individuals remain in Pennsylvania prisons serving illegal life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed when they were juveniles. . . . It is abundantly clear that the exercise of our constitutional authority is required to set forth the manner in which resentencing will proceed in the courts of this Commonwealth.
Citing the “unambiguous[]” mandate of Roper, Graham, Miller, and Montgomery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that before imposing life without parole on a child:
the sentencing court must first find, based on competent evidence, that the offender is entirely unable to change. It must find that there is no possibility that the offender could be rehabilitated at any point later in his life, no matter how much time he spends in prison and regardless of the amount of therapeutic interventions he receives, and that the crime committed reflects the juvenile’s true and unchangeable personality and character. Under Miller and Montgomery, a sentencing court has no discretion to sentence a juvenile offender to life without parole unless it finds that the defendant is one of the ‘rare’ and ‘uncommon’ children possessing the above-stated characteristics, permitting its imposition. A sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for a murder committed when the defendant was a juvenile is otherwise disproportionate and unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
The court outlined procedures to ensure that such sentences would in fact be reserved for the most exceptional cases: a formal presumption against life without parole such that, for a child to be constitutionally eligible for the sentence, the government must prove his or her incorrigibility beyond a reasonable doubt. To satisfy that burden, prosecutors may present evidence relating both to the Miller factors and the factors appearing in Pennsylvania’s murder sentencing statute for juveniles. Rejecting the government’s suggestion that an offender must prove his own capacity for rehabilitation, the court held that any suggestion of placing the burden on the juvenile offender “is belied by the central premise of Roper, Graham, Miller, and Montgomery—that as a matter of law, juveniles are categorically less culpable than adults.” It emphasized, again, that placing a presumption against life without parole, with the burden on the prosecution to overcome it, was necessary to comply with both due process concerns and “the definitive language” used by the Supreme Court.
Before remanding the case for what it noted would be Batts’ third sentencing proceeding, the court concluded: “The procedures we have established provide juveniles facing a potential sentence of life without parole with heightened due process protections. . . . We expect that the proper employment of these procedures will result in courts sentencing juveniles to life without parole in only the rarest of circumstances, as contemplated and prescribed by the United States Supreme Court.”
Read the case here: Comm. v. Batts, No. 45 MAP 2016, 2017 WL 2735411 (Pa. June 26, 2017)