Historic Win: Michigan Supreme Court Stops People Convicted as Kids from Dying in Prison

DETROIT – The ACLU of Michigan, the ACLU, Juvenile Law Center, and civil rights attorney Deborah LaBelle applaud the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision that subjecting young people to excessively long prison sentences violates the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment.

In the case before the court, People v. Eads, James Gregory Eads was sentenced to serve up to 77 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder and felony firearm possession when he was just 16 years old. Given a 52-year minimum sentence, Mr. Eads would have to serve more than 40 years in prison before he is eligible for parole —years past his life expectancy and, ironically, decades past when he would have been eligible for release if he’d received a life sentence instead.

In its decision, the Michigan Supreme Court concludes that giving Mr. Eads what amounts to a life sentence violates the Michigan Constitution’s prohibition against cruel or unusual punishment. For the first time, the court extends the constitutional protections that youth enjoy from life sentences under the Michigan Constitution to excessively long term-of-years sentences that represent “de facto life sentences.” As the court emphasized in its decision, youth enjoy even greater protections from punishment under the Michigan Constitution than they do under the U.S. Constitution.

The court’s decision adopts arguments made by the ACLU and its partners in a friend-of-the-court brief they filed in this case and prior cases, including that prison terms like those imposed on Mr. Eads are unconstitutional for three reasons:

• Due to his youth, Mr. Eads had reduced culpability and a unique capacity for change. A de facto life sentence does not account for those special characteristics.

• Excessively lengthy sentences for youth are out of step with the practices of other states.

• Incarcerating young people for the rest of their lives does not serve Michigan’s special sentencing goal of promoting rehabilitation.

Marty Berger, Skadden Fellow for the ACLU of Michigan, said this about the case:

“This ruling is groundbreaking. It means that Mr. Eads, and all other youth in similar circumstances, can’t be subjected to what is essentially a life sentence for crimes committed when they were young. Science shows that young people do not have the same decision-making capacity as adults in high-pressure and emotionally charged situations. Failing to take their youth into account when handing down sentences is not only wrong, but also incredibly cruel. Young people are uniquely capable of change, and our sentencing laws should reflect this.

“As welcome as this monumental decision is, it is by no means the end of our commitment to protect the rights of young people caught in the criminal legal system. We view this victory as another important step in our mission to dismantle a system of laws intended to lock young people up and throw away the key.”

Bonsitu Kitaba-Gaviglio, ACLU of Michigan Legal Director, had this to say:

“These rare and highly punitive sentences are almost exclusively imposed on youth of color, compounding both their disproportionality and their cruelty. This decision should serve as a model to courts across the country: there is a different path. Young people don’t choose the poverty, the trauma, or the broken systems that so often draw them into the criminal legal system—and we cannot in good conscience blame a child for the failures of the world around them, then hand down our harshest punishment as if they had. Science tells us that young people are fundamentally different—without fully formed capacity to reason in high-pressure situations. What is fully formed is their capacity to grow, to change, and to become someone entirely different from who they were on their worst day. Our sentencing laws should reflect that truth, not erase it.”

Andrew Keats, Senior Attorney at Juvenile Law Center, added:

“We applaud the Michigan Supreme Court for continuing to recognize and apply what the developmental and brain science research to tell us—that young people are less culpable and less deserving of the state’s harshest punishments, and that a 52-year minimum sentence is in reality no different than being sentenced to die in prison.”

Deborah LaBelle, civil rights attorney, noted:

“The court’s decision continues the recognition that sentences which fail to provide youth with an opportunity for release after reformation are simply cruel. Michigan must continue to a reexamine practices of excessive punishment, which serve little purpose and are out of step with the rest of the country.”

Read more about the Eads case here.
Read the ACLU amicus brief in Eads here.