In 1989, Joe Sullivan was a 13 year old Pensacola teenager accused of robbery and rape of a 72 year old woman. Joe was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison without parole in spite of the fact that the victim's testimony appears to be impeachable.
It's 2009 and Joe Sullivan is 33 years old and his lawyers are asking the US Supreme Court to consider whether his life sentence at the age of 13 violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The NY Times' article noted that there's not much factual argument to the "unusual" portion of the Amendment since "only eight people in the world are serving sentences of life without parole for crimes they committed when they were 13. All are in the United States. And there are only two people in that group whose crimes did not involve a killing. Both are in Florida and both are black." Florida's Attorney General Bill McCollum has treated the case as frivolous. Fortunately, the court thought otherwise requesting a response from the state. This is not a guarantee that the nation's highest court will actually hear the case but it's a start.
Furthermore, there's disturbing trial evidence that makes a compelling case that the original trial's decision should be re-evaluated. The NY Times article noted, "
Mr. Sullivan's trial, for instance, lasted a day. He was represented by a lawyer who made no opening statement and whose closing argument occupies about three double-spaced pages of the trial transcript. The lawyer was later suspended, and the Florida Bar's Web site says he is "not eligible to practice in Florida."
There was biological evidence from the rape, but it was not presented at the trial. When Mr. Sullivan's new lawyers recently sought to conduct DNA testing on it, they were told that the state had destroyed it in 1993.
"I absolutely believe he is innocent," Bryan A. Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said of Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Stevenson said he believed that one of the older youths who committed the burglary with Mr. Sullivan and who testified against him was probably the actual assailant."
This is an important case that should be heard by the Supreme Court. Disturbingly, our Attorney General Bill McCollum hasn't considered it so. It's time to go over his head.
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