Court Opinion

ID: 9711993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:43:54.789495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:08.860731
License: Public Domain

Justice FLAHERTY,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in all aspects of the majority’s well-written and well-reasoned opinion, save one: the affirming of the sentence of life without the possibility of parole. From that part of the majority’s opinion, I must respectfully depart.
I agree with my colleagues that the assault on Mr. Gardiner was carried out with almost incomprehensible savagery. However, I believe that, perhaps affected by the unquestionable brutality of the crime, the majority has determined too quickly that Mr. Page is incapable of reform.
The record reveals a young man who has been driven by rage and an inability to control either his anger or his violent impulses throughout most of his short life. He has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and has IQ values in the low range. He is a product of a dysfunctional family; both of his parents were drug addicted, and his father and grandfather were HIV positive, likely as a result of drug use. His father eventually died of AIDS.
Of course, none of this excuses the brutality of his actions, for which he deserves a life sentence. But, in my view, when one considers the obstacles with which he has been confronted, coupled with his young age, the chance for rehabilitation exists, and Mr. Page should not be consigned to the rubbish heap of life.
*952This is not a case of still another crime by a career criminal, or of a felony where barbarism was combined with a planned criminal venture. See, e.g., State v. Graham, 941 A.2d 848, 867 (R.I.2008) (determining that defendant was likely beyond rehabilitation given his “life of crime” and affirming sentence of life without parole imposed for his conviction of committing murder for hire); State v. Brown, 898 A.2d 69, 72, 86-87 (R.I.2006) (concluding that defendant’s numerous convictions and contacts with law enforcement rendered his “prospects for rehabilitation” bleak and affirming sentence of life without parole for his conviction for the sadistic murder of an acquaintance); State v. Motyka, 893 A.2d 267, 271-72, 290-91 (R.I.2006) (affirming sentence of life without parole where defendant, who had “prior criminal contacts” involving kidnapping, high-jacking, and assault, returned to the home where he previously had performed construction work and committed the heinous murder of the homeowner); State v. Harnois, 853 A.2d 1249, 1251, 1257 (R.I.2004) (affirming sentence of life without parole following defendant’s conviction for his “deliberate planning and facilitation” of a successful murder for hire of his wife); State v. Travis, 568 A.2d 316, 326 (R.I.1990) (discussing defendant’s prolific criminal career, including previous convictions for robbery, and affirming sentence of life without parole for his conviction of first-degree murder perpetrated in the commission of a robbery). By contrast, this unquestionably heinous act was the product of happenstance and the amoral impulses of a very troubled young man.
Life without parole for youthful offenders has been grist for the mill for a number of thoughtful law review articles. See, e.g., Lauren Fine, Death Behind Bars: Examining Juvenile Life Without Parole in Sullivan v. Florida and Graham v. Florida, 5 Duke J. of Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y 24, 41, 41^42 (2009) (proposing that the sentence of life without parole for juveniles does not achieve incarceration’s goals of deterrence and rehabilitation and should be held unconstitutional, in part because “[i]t is not until age twenty-one that individuals experience ‘tremendous gains in emotional maturity, impulse control and decision making1 that continue until the brain becomes fully developed in the mid-twenties”); Jeffrey Fagan, End Natural Life Sentences for Juveniles, 6 Criminology and Pub. Pol’y 735, 744 (2007) (arguing that no “extra benefits to crime control or to retributive justice” flow from a sentence of life without parole imposed on a juvenile).
In his majority opinion for the United States Supreme Court in Roger v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 573-74, 578, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), which held the imposition of the death penalty for offenders who were under eighteen years old at the time of the crime to be unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy said, “When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the State can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the State cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity.”
I am fully aware that the writings referred to above address the subject of life without parole for juveniles and that Mr. Page had passed the threshold of majority, if just barely, when he murdered Mr. Gardiner. But while there must be some arbitrary bright-line demarcation between youth and adulthood, there is no question that few, if any, young people are imbued with the attributes of adulthood as soon as their eighteenth birthday is achieved.
Finally, this is not to say that Mr. Page ever should be entitled to parole or that it ever should be granted to him. In any *953case, one sentenced to life in prison is not parole eligible until he has served at least fifteen years. G.L.1956 § 11-23-2.2. If Mr. Page were eligible for parole, he would not have the opportunity until his mid-thirties to demonstrate to the parole board that he has reformed, matured, and that he is no longer the angry, violent, and impulsive person that he was at age eighteen. He would have the opportunity to show that he has changed, perhaps through counseling, education, maturity, or by embracing religious faith.
Of course, he may not prove a change in character to the satisfaction.of the parole board and may indeed fail to show that he is fit for a return.to law-abiding society; that is a determination for the board. Although I concede that this is a close case, in my opinion, Mr. Page should not be denied the opportunity for reform and for a return to society for the remainder of his natural life.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s affirmance of Mr. Page’s sentence of life without the possibility of parole, and would have reduced the sentence to life imprisonment in accordance with G.L.1956 § 12-19.2-5.