Court's rulings deserve a much closer examination

By Fred Mester

Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard held a press conference a couple of weeks ago to give us his take on two recent U.S. Supreme Court cases ruling that sentences of mandatory life without any possibility of parole given to minors violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. If the press coverage is true, the former gubernatorial and senate candidate feels the rulings will unleash an “unparalleled deadly crime spree” that would release “Hannibal Lecters” out into the public.

As a retired judge, I have been trained to deal with facts, so let us all take a deep breath and look at the facts. It is a fact that the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that these mandatory life sentences posed “too great a risk of disproportionate punishment” on children. It is a fact that the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that the 365 people in Michigan serving that unconstitutional sentence had to be resentenced. The only thing that has changed for these people is that they will each have an opportunity to prove to a parole board, in individualized hearings, that they are rehabilitated. 

The Supreme Court said, “allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity—and who have since matured—will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment…Those prisoners who have shown an inability to reform will continue to serve life sentences. The opportunity for release will be afforded to those who demonstrate the truth of Miller’s central intuition—that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change.”

The Supreme Court allowed for the rare youth who was not rehabilitated by expressly stating, “those prisoners who have shown an inability to reform will continue to serve life sentences.”  The court couldn’t have been clearer. 
It’s incumbent on our elected officials to proceed in an accurate and measured way.

(Fred Mester is a retired Oakland County Circuit Court judge and former federal prosecutor.)