Florida High Court commands New Sentences in Juvenile Cases
EmailTALLAHASSEE | A 33-year-old woman serving life without parole for the murder of a Panama City-area cab driver when she was 15 will get a new sentence under a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday.
The court ordered new sentencing hearings for Rebecca Falcon and three other people who committed felonies as juveniles in order to comply with U.S. Supreme Court rulings that say juveniles can’t be sent to prison for life if they haven’t killed someone and mandatory life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile murderers.
The Florida high court is also giving anyone who received life sentences for crimes committed as juveniles two years to seek new sentences, which could affect about 200 people.
“This definitely gives hope to quite a few children,” said Karen Gottlieb, a lawyer representing Falcon.
Falcon was a troubled high school student whose mother sent her from Leavenworth, Kan., to Florida to live with her grandparents. She got drunk and snuck out of her grandparents’ house in November 1997 to meet up with 18-year-old Clifton Gilchrist. They flagged down a cab, forced the driver to go to a secluded area and then shot him in the head in an attempted robbery, according to court records.
Falcon has since been repeatedly used as an example in the argument over whether child murderers should be locked away for life.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 in an Alabama case that juveniles can’t be sentenced to life without parole because, in part, their brains aren’t fully developed and there’s a better chance for reform than with adult offenders.
