Missouri defends 241-year prison sentence for black 16-year-old, now 39-years-old.

[Jack Fake]

WASHINGTON — Missouri is defending a prison sentence for a man
who committed robbery and other crimes on a single day when he
was 16 and now isn't eligible for parole until he's 112 years
old.

State Attorney General Josh Hawley says in a U.S. Supreme Court
filing that defendant Bobby Bostic's 241-year sentence for 18
crimes does not violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and
unusual punishment. Hawley says a 2010 Supreme Court's ruling
that outlawed life sentences for people under 18 who didn't kill
anyone applies only to a sentence for one crime.

The former St. Louis judge who sentenced Bostic disagrees. She
now believes the term is unjust and is backing Bostic's high-
court appeal. There's no timetable for when the justices will
decide whether to hear his case.

Now 39, Bostic has been in prison for more than 20 years.

State and federal courts around the country have ruled
differently about whether young people convicted of crimes can
be sentenced to prison for terms that the American Civil
Liberties Union, representing Bostic, said "exceed their life
expectancy."

The retired judge, Evelyn Baker, is among more than 100 current
and former judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officers who
are calling on the Supreme Court to throw out the sentence as
grossly unfair. Among those supporting Bostic are former acting
U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates, former Whitewater independent
counsel Kenneth Starr, and former Solicitor General Donald
Verrilli Jr.

In December 1995, Bostic and 18-year-old Donald Hutson robbed a
group of six people who were delivering Christmas presents for
the needy, the ACLU said in its appeal on Bostic's behalf.

They fired a gun at two victims, grazing one and missing the
other, Hawley said in Missouri's brief. The robbers then
carjacked a woman and Hutson robbed and fondled her before
releasing her, according to the ACLU's brief. The two men threw
the guns in a river and used the money to buy marijuana.

Hutson took a plea deal and got 30 years. Bostic went to trial
and lost.

At Bostic's sentencing, Baker said, "You made your choice.
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."

Later, she said, "I feel nothing for you. I feel the same thing
for you that you apparently felt for those victims and you feel
for your family."

But in an essay published in the Washington Post in February,
Baker wrote, "Scientists have discovered so much about brain
development in the more than 20 years since I sentenced Bostic.
What I learned too late is that young people's brains are not
static; they are in the process of maturing."

The Supreme Court has used essentially the same reasoning in
barring life sentences for juveniles who didn't kill anyone and
in throwing out mandatory life terms for people who kill before
they turn 18.

The ACLU wants the court to apply the 2010 ruling to Bostic.

But Hawley, in the state's brief filed Thursday, said there are
several reasons the high court should not disturb the Missouri
court rulings upholding the sentence. Among them was that the
2010 Supreme Court ruling doesn't apply to Bostic because he
"was sentenced to multiple, consecutive terms in prison for
committing multiple crimes, and who will be eligible for parole
in great old age."

Hawley is seeking the Republican nomination to take on
Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill in one of the nation's
most closely watched races this year.

http://www.wral.com/missouri-defends-241-year-prison-sentence-
for-16-year-old/17421572/