The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court of the United States to take on the case of Bobby Bostic, who was unconstitutionally sentenced to 241 years in prison for non-homicide crimes he committed when he was 16.
Bobby is eligible for parole in 2091, when he will be 112 years old.
“Bobby Bostic should get a chance to show that crimes he committed as a teen do not define him,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri. “The Constitution demands nothing less.”
In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Graham v. Florida that the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment “prohibits the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.”
The decision requires that the state provide a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.” The court based the ruling in part on the growing scientific recognition that the brains of children under 18 remain undeveloped, including the parts needed for behavioral control.
On Dec. 12, 1995, 16-year-old Bobby Bostic and an 18-year-old friend committed a pair of armed robberies. Two people were shot at, but no one was seriously injured. Prosecutors charged Bostic with 18 separate counts, and a jury found him guilty on all of them.
The trial judge made her intention clear during sentencing. “You’re gonna have to live with your choice, and you’re gonna die with your choice because, Bobby Bostic, you will die in the Department of Corrections,” the circuit judge said.
“The Missouri Supreme Court believes the ruling only applies when a state uses the magic words ‘life without parole.’ We believe otherwise,” said Jeffrey Mittman, executive director, ACLU of Missouri. “Not only is this sentence unconstitutional, it is reprehensible.”
