I want to thank you all for your recommendations and information. He was hoping that this would be a good appeal item, but it sounds like it isn't. I have one last question. A few months ago the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot receive life sentences for a murder they committed as juveniles. If this is true would this be grounds for an appeal?
It depends in what you infer the meaning of JUVENILE to mean.
The Supreme Court ACTUALLY said in their ruling sometime in June of 2012 was that juveniles convicted of murder cannot be subject to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Currently only twenty nine US states have such laws.
The SUPREMES went on to say in Miller v. Alabama and later in the Jackson v. Hobbs ruling, building on a decision two years prior that juveniles could not be sentenced under any circumstances to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses.
Plus, even when convicted of murder, the SUPREMES further said, judges must be allowed to take a juvenile's age into account (along with other relevant circumstances) in deciding the appropriate punishment.
The SUPREMES noted, moreover, that "appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest penalty will be uncommon."
That means the SUPREMES didn't outlaw such a sentence.
The SUPREMES did outlaw LIFE SENTENCES for Juveniles who didn't kill as Unconstitutional!
In Graham v. Florida, the U.S. struck down as unconstitutional the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.
Although the court found that the state need not guarantee the offender eventual release, it held that if such a sentence is imposed on a juvenile it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.
So, in a word, YES, an appeal along the grounds you posit MIGHT be possible. That assumes, he isn't time barred, or the appellate relief hasn't previously been waived or attempted.
I'm thinking if he's a high profile defendant, ALL of this would have been broached, if not litigated previously.
Good luck.