CJC students working on JLWOP cases
CJC student attorneys Eric Rico, Helen Bradshaw, Alyson Eller, and Brendan Lokka

Perseverance Brings Progress in CJC “Juvenile Lifer” Cases

In addition to handling trial court cases, since 2016, the Criminal Justice Clinic (CJC) has been representing clients in Maryland who are serving de facto juvenile life without parole sentences (“JLWOP”), sentences that the Maryland Court of Appeals (in 2018) found are illegal under the 8th Amendment. Over the course of three years, eight student attorneys represented a client who had received a 90-year sentence for a non-homicide crime committed when he was 16 years old. In August 2019, the Baltimore City Circuit Court granted the CJC’s motion to vacate the client’s sentence. Next semester, the client will have an opportunity to receive a fair sentence based on the parameters established by the 2018 Maryland Court of Appeals decision and on his personal growth and maturation during his more than 20-year incarceration. Clinic students Helen Bradshaw and Eric Rico, supervised by Professor Binny Miller, will work with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender to achieve this result.

In September, a 70-year old CJC client who has been imprisoned over 42 years for a felony murder (where a police officer was the one to shoot the fatal bullet during the client’s commission of another offense), was approved at the first stage of review in the parole process. This happened after 10 previous hearings where he was not represented by counsel. Nine student attorneys have represented this client in his efforts to gain parole; Alyson Eller and Brendan Lokka will represent him as his case moves through the complex Maryland parole process.