Court to look again at juvenile life sentences

After passing up the issue several times, the Supreme Court agreed todayto consider whether its 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, limiting sentences of life without parole for minors whocommit murder, applies retroactively — that is, to inmates whose conviction had become final before the ruling was issued. However, in taking on that issue, the Court also added a secondquestion that might keep it from deciding the first one. The new case,Toca v. Louisiana,was one of four cases the Court accepted for review; the casesare likely to be argued in late March or early April.

In summary, here are the other issues the Court granted:

** Whether it will overrule a 1964 decision (Brulotte v. Thys Co.) that barred any payment of royalties for use of a patented product or process after the patent had expired. That is the issue in the case of Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, Inc. — a dispute over royalties on a toy based on the comic book character Spider-Man. The Justice Department, asked by the Court for its views on that case, urged the Court not to review it, arguing that the petition had not made a strong enough argument for overruling the precedent. The Court did not take that advice.

** Whether a debtor who has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code has a right to appeal when a bankruptcy court refuses to ratify hisplan for repaying creditors. The issue arises in the case of Bullard v. Hyde Park Savings Bank. An appeal was barred in this case on the premise that the denial of confirmation of the plan was not a final decision.

** In another bankruptcy case, whether a debtor who has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 and won approval of a debt-repayment plan, but then converts the case to one under Chapter 7, has a right to a refund of any undistributed funds held by the Chapter 13 trustee or whether those funds should be distributed to hiscreditors. The case is Harris v. Viegelahn. The Court’s announcement that it wouldhear this case marked the first time this Term, and for most of this year, in which it accepted a case after examining it for the first time — a practice designed to head off the possibility that a granted case will wash out later, after the Court and lawyers have spent time on it.

In taking on the juvenile case from Louisiana, the Justices said they would consider two questions: first, whether the limitation on sentences of life without parole in the Miller case applies retroactively “to this case” — that is, to George Toca’s case; and, second, whether a federal court canrule on a federal habeas claim thata state post-conviction court has erroneously refused to recognize that aSupreme Court criminal-law precedent applies retroactively. If the Court were to conclude that such a state court refusal does not raise a “federal question,” that might keep the Justices from ruling directly on the retroactivity question.

The Court issued its decision inMilleron June 25, 2012. The decision did not bar all life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of murder that they committed asminors, but it did require states totailor the review of such sentences to the individual involved. Since then, the Court has been asked several times — either by individual inmatesor by state officials — to reviewwhether that decision should apply to cases that were final before that date. It has previously turned down each of those cases.

George Toca had just turned age seventeenin 1984 when he was arrested for the shooting of a youth said to be his best friend during a botched armed robbery. Toca was convicted of murder in the case and sentenced to life without parole under a state rule requiring that sentence for such convictions. He has often contended that he is innocent — a claim that his best friend’sfamily has supported.

Louisianacourts refused to apply the Miller decision to his case, on the ground thatit had become final in state court before the date of that ruling.

In taking his case to the Supreme Court, Toca’s lawyers raised only the retroactivity issue. In responding to that appeal, the state suggested that the case also raised the separate question whether a federal question is raised at all when an inmate claims that a state post-conviction court had failed to applya Supreme Court criminal-law decision retroactively. The Court’s order accepted review of both issues.