State v. Skipper

¶1In re State of Louisiana; — Plaintiff; Applying For Writ of Certiorari and/or Review, Parish of E. Baton Rouge, 19th Judicial District Court Div. G, No. 11-08-0298; to the Court of Appeal, First Circuit, No. 2011 KA 0004.

¶2*1012h Granted. The decision of the court of appeal ordering respondent resentenced is reversed. However, respondent’s sentence is amended to delete the denial of parole eligibility. The Department of Corrections is directed to revise respondent’s prison master to reflect that his sentence is no longer without benefit of parole, and to provide respondent with a parole eligibility date pursuant to the criteria in La. R.S. 15:574.4(A)(2), without regard to commutation of sentence by the Governor. See State v. Shaffer, 11-1756 (La.11/23/11), 77 So.3d 939, applying Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. -, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 17 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010).

¶3dissents and assigns reasons.

¶4|]The Defendant, Phillip Skipper, (relator herein) was tried by a jury and convicted of the crime of aggravated rape, which he committed when he was 16 years old. He was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment at hard labor without the benefit of parole, probation, or suspended sentence.

¶5The United States Supreme Court’s historic decision in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. -, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) held that “for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide, the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole.” Graham, 560 U.S. at -, 130 S.Ct. at 2030. Prior to Graham, the United States was the only nation in the world still adhering to the practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses.1 In the United States, only a handful of jurisdictions still impose life sentences without parole on juvenile offenders. Louisiana is one of eleven states wherein juveniles are currently serving life sentences, without parole, for non-homicide offenses.2 When Graham was decided, there were 129 juveniles in the United States serving life sentences, without parole, for non-homicide offenses. Of |2those, seventy-seven juveniles were serving sentences imposed in Florida. Of the remaining 53, who were imprisoned in just ten states, 17 were serving life sentences imposed in Louisiana for non-homicide offenses.3

¶6Graham makes clear that the ad hoc exercise of the executive’s power of commutation does not afford juveniles sufficient protection, and such inmates have nowhere else to go for relief other than the judiciary. There is no way to calculate a parole eligibility date for a life sentence. To satisfy the dictates of Graham, I would remand this case to the district court, and order that relator be re-sentenced to a fixed term of years, which can be used as the basis for calculating the eligibility date for parole.