Rumpole's argument that Eric Rivera cannot get life.

1. A bit of a contretemps arose on Twitter earlier in
the week after the verdict in Eric Rivera as to
whether Rivera, who was a juvenile could be
sentenced to life for the verdict of second degree
murder without a firearm and armed burglary
with a battery.
Simply put, Rivera cannot legally be sentenced
to life in prison, despite what so called "legal
experts" who pontificate in the media have said.
They don't handle these types of cases. We do.
They are wrong. We are right. Here is why:
1) In Roper v Simmons the US Supreme Court
invalidated the death penalty for juveniles.
2) In Graham v. US the Supreme Court
invalidated life without parole for juveniles in
non-homicide cases.
3) In Miller v. Alabama the Supreme Court
reached the final part of its tripartite analysis

2. and almost completely invalidated mandatory
life sentences for juveniles in murder cases.
The so-called experts have hung their hat on this
phrase in Miller: "Although we do not
foreclose a sentencer's ability to make that
judgment in homicide cases, we require it to
take into account how children are different,
and how those differences counsel against
irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in
prison."
To quote a legal scholar: "You have eyes
grasshopper, but you do not see." Or in this
case, lawyers unfamiliar with the law have read
some headnotes as they rushed to the television
studio for their appearance. Consumed as they
are with giving the startling opinion that Rivera
could still get life, they ignore the facts of
this case.

3. Graham forbids the imposition of a life sentence
for the armed burglary charge. Period.
Miller technically could allow for the imposition
of a life sentence in theory and exceptional
circumstances, but Miller and Graham mandate
that the trial engage in a proportionality
analysis that includes other cases of similarly
situated defendants and other defendants in the
case.
In Rivera's case, defendant Venje Hunt was
sentenced to 29 years. Rivera, having been
convicted by the jury of murder without a
firearm, is similarly situated to Hunt no matter
the prosecution's theory of the case. The court
cannot substitute it's judgment for the finding of
the jury. Thus, these words of Miller come into
play:
Because that holding is sufficient to decide
these cases, we do not consider Jackson's

4. and Miller's alternative argument that the
Eighth Amendment requires a categorical
bar on life without parole for juveniles, or at
least for those 14 and younger. But given all
we have said in Roper Graham , and this
decision about children's diminished
culpability and heightened capacity for
change, we think appropriate occasions for
sentencing juveniles to this harshest
possible penalty will be uncommon. That is
especially so because of the great difficulty
we noted in Roper and Graham of
distinguishing at this early age between “the
juvenile offender whose crime reflects
unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the
rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects
irreparable corruption.”
The holding shows two things: 1) the Supreme
Court has yet to square on consider the
imposition of a life sentence without parole on
an Eighth Amendment basis; and 2) The
imposition of a life sentence for a juvenile not

5. found by the jury to be the shooter, when
compared to a co-defendant's 29 year sentence
would never stand the scrutiny of a Graham/
Miller proportionality analysis.
But lawyers who want a spot on Dr. Phil would
have you believe otherwise.
See You In Court.