Equal Justice Initiative

The United States Supreme Court today decided that it will review the case of Joe Sullivan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in Florida for an offense at age 13 that did not involve a killing.

On April 30, 2009, a California appeal court struck down a life imprisonment without parole sentence imposed on Antonio Nunez, a 14-year-old child convicted of aggravated kidnapping. The court declared the sentence to be cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and the California Constitution.

Photo by Steve Liss

The Equal Justice Initiative recently filed challenges in several states to sentences to life imprisonment without possibility of parole imposed on children for offenses at age thirteen or fourteen. In spite of a major loss of funding, EJI lawyers have filed cases in Mississippi, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Delaware in the past several weeks.

Kenneth Frazier (left) won the release of James "Bo" Cochran, who spent 19 years on Alabama's death row for a crime he did not commit.

Photo by Steve Liss

In oral argument at the Delaware Supreme Court in Dover on February 4, 2009, EJI's Bryan Stevenson argued that the court should strike down as unconstitutional life imprisonment without parole sentences imposed on fourteen-year-old children. EJI represents Donald Torres, who was sentenced to die in prison in Delaware for an offense that occurred when he was just fourteen years old.

The United States Supreme Court has asked the State of Florida to respond to EJI's petition in the case of Joe Sullivan, who was convicted for a sexual assault at age 13 and sentenced to die in prison.

EJI's largest funder, the JEHT Foundation, will shut down at the end of this month and will not be able to provide grants committed to EJI for the next three years because its funds were stolen by money manager Bernard Madoff.

Joe Sullivan, now 31 and confined to a wheelchair, was sentenced to die in prison for an offense that happened when he was 13.

Attorneys from EJI have filed a petition in the United States Supreme Court asking it to find that Joe Sullivan's sentence to die in prison for a crime that occurred when he was 13 years old is cruel and unusual punishment.

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Phillip Shaw is a free man today. He was released from prison in Missouri after his conviction and sentence to life imprisonment without parole -- for an offense at age 14 -- were overturned.