Missouri is defending a prison sentence for a man who committed robbery and other crimes as a 16-year-old and now isn’t eligible for parole until he’s 112.
Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley says in a U.S. Supreme Court filing that defendant Bobby Bostic’s 241-year sentence for 18 crimes doesn’t violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Hawley says in the brief filed Thursday that a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that outlawed life sentences for people under 18 who didn’t kill anyone applies only to a sentence for one crime.
The St. Louis judge who sentenced Bostic disagrees. She now believes the term is unjust. She’s backing Bostic’s high-court appeal.
Now 39, Bostic has been in prison more than 20 years.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI