holding that sentence of life without the 15 possibility of parole for a mentally and emotionally disabled thirteen-year-old child violated 16 state and federal constitutions because both “proscribe cruel and unusual punishment”
How later courts described this case
- holding that sentence of life without the 15 possibility of parole for a mentally and emotionally disabled thirteen-year-old child violated 16 state and federal constitutions because both “proscribe cruel and unusual punishment”
- holding that sentence of life without the 16 possibility of parole for a mentally and emotionally disabled thirteen-year-old child violated 17 state and federal constitutions because both “proscribe cruel and unusual punishment”
- holding that sentence of life without the 17 possibility of parole for a mentally and emotionally disabled thirteen-year-old child violated 18 state and federal constitutions because both “proscribe cruel and unusual punishment”
- holding that sentence of life without the 18 possibility of parole for a mentally and emotionally disabled thirteen-year-old child violated 19 state and federal constitutions because both “proscribe cruel and unusual punishment”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Mowbray, J.,
concurring:
I concur.
I agree that appellant Naovarath’s sentence should be modified from life without the possibility of parole to life with the possibility of parole.
Thirteen-year-old Naovarath pleaded guilty to murdering thirty-eight-year-old David Foote and threw himself on the mercy of the court. While the facts are in dispute, Naovarath’s statement, attached to the Pre-Sentencing Report prepared by the Department of Parole and Probation which was submitted to the sentencing judge prior to formal sentencing, states in part:
The last time when I went over to his [Foote’s] house to jack him off he told me to give him a blow job so I said no because I think it is desgusting [sic] we argue for a few minuties [sic]. Then I told him that I have to go home and he say no don’t go so I got up and walk then he follow me and hit me with a stick. So I grabbed the back of the wheelchair and tipped it over and he fell down on the ground got up grabe [sic] his knife and came after me. So I took a glass jar and throw [sic] it at him and hit him in the head he strated [sic] to bleed I got so scared I diden’t [sic] want to leave I was to [sic] scared to leave. . . .
*533 Be that as it may, I do not accept Naovarath’s explanation as an excuse for his crime. But it is a fact to be considered in the sentencing process.
The Pre-Sentencing Report in its final recommendation to the sentencing judge stated:
RECOMMENDATION
In addition to the $20 administrative assessment, it is recommended by the Department of Parole and Probation that the defendant, KHAMSONE KHAM NAOVARATH, be sentenced to a term of Life in the Nevada Department of Prisons, with the possibility of parole. (Emphasis added.)
The sentencing judge, however, chose to sentence Naovarath to a term of life without the possibility of parole.
Writing, of course, only for myself, it strikes me that such a sentence imposed on a thirteen year old boy under the facts presented reads like a sentence from a Charles Dickens’ nineteenth century novel. Let me make myself crystal clear: I do not in any way approve of the boy’s condemnable conduct nor of the crime he committed. But the boy is still a child of God and rather than being assigned to oblivion, a flicker of light should be kept alive in the hope that he may some time in the future be rehabilitated and become an acceptable member of society.
For these reasons I would reverse and remand the case with instructions to modify the sentence to life with the possibility of parole.