Have you just recently recovered from the creepy news story about the urban legend Slenderman? Not so fast. The Wisconsin case, in which two 12-year-old girls tried to kill a third girl by stabbing her 19 times in 2014, is far from over. And a new HBO documentary features the trial, which has picked back up again recently. The two girls, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, are now 14 and are being charged as adults for first-degree homicide. This means they could serve 65 years in prison, if found guilty. But on Friday the court is scheduled to discuss psychological evaluations of the girls, which could give them a chance for a lighter sentence.

This comes at the same time that HBO is announcing its release of a documentary about the case, called “Beware The Slenderman.” It is said to focus on “the court’s deliberation whether the girls should be tried as adults or children.” The trailer is sure to send chills down your spine.

The first trailer for @HBO doc “Beware the Slenderman” is as creepy as the story it tells https://t.co/86ILbr9McI pic.twitter.com/2x18FNeGk5

— Paste Magazine (@PasteMagazine) November 11, 2016

The girls’ victim Payton Leutner was a classmate. They lured her into the woods reportedly convinced that they had to kill her, otherwise the tall, faceless man known as Slenderman would come and kill their families. According to the girls, they wanted to prove to people that Slenderman was real, and if they sacrificed a human, they would be rewarded with being his proxies and living in his mansion. Fortunately, Leutner survived by crawling out of the woods to the street, where a passing cyclist helped her to safety.

Geyser and Weier’s defense attorneys have tried to have their cases moved to a juvenile court, but the motions were denied in August due to the degree of premeditation. According to the state, they had planned the deed for months, lied to the victim by telling her to not move and that they would get help, and started to flee from law enforcement. As a last resort to try to get the girls a more lenient sentence, their defense attorneys entered pleas of not guilty because of mental disease or defect in the late summer. On Friday, the conclusions of the psychologists who have evaluated the girls will be discussed in court.

Anissa Weier appears via video, Morgan Geyser appears in person as the Slender man case moves ahead pic.twitter.com/mpoeNd7GyJ

— Myra Sanchick (@myrasanchick) November 11, 2016

Entering a plea of insanity essentially means that the defendant asserts that at the time of the crime she was affected by a mental disease that prevented her from knowing right from wrong. If found guilty under those conditions, the defendant would normally be sent to a state mental hospital for treatment. Geyser has already been diagnosed with an early onset of schizophrenia. According to doctors, she was traumatized after the attack and talked to hallucinations of Slenderman in her cell.

After a suicide attempt, Geyser has spent the past six months at a mental health institute where she doesn’t get to read, draw, or even wear her glasses, much to her mother’s distress. Weier is committed to a juvenile detention center on a $500,000 bail and has recovered from a ”shared delusional belief” since she was separated from Geyser. Both girls’ parents are trying to lower the bail so that they can go home and be under house arrest.

Reality is scarier than fiction in the trailer for HBO’s Slenderman doc https://t.co/4dSpivmn73 pic.twitter.com/Ln0zcUMBux

— The A.V. Club (@TheAVClub) November 11, 2016

A fact that could work in the girls’ favor is that they may have truly believed they didn’t have any other choice than to kill Leutner, since they thought their families would die unless they did. This, according to the defense, should mean that the girls only should be charged with attempted second-degree homicide. Lawyers have asked that the girls’ trials be conducted separately and with a jury from another county.

In the meantime, popular culture is still dwelling on the online myth of Slenderman that has affected so many young people and many believed the 6^th season of “American Horror Story” would feature the faceless character. That didn’t happen, but it is not far-fetched to think that he will show up somewhere else soon.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On January 25, 2016, four years after the major shift that Miller v. Alabama created in juvenile law, the Supreme Court did it again. In a 6-3 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, SCOTUS greatly impacted the landscape of juvenile law along with the lives of hundreds of individuals sentenced to a lifetime of prison as young people. The court ruled that Miller retroactively gives juvenile offenders the ability to show that they are “not beyond rehabilitation to become a law-abiding individual” at the time of sentencing.

The much-anticipated present change in juvenile law altered the landscape of the firm stance taken in Miller on June 25, 2012 pertaining to the incarceration of juvenile offenders. At that time, SCOTUS held that sentencing a juvenile homicide offender to life in prison without the possibility of parole was in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. The Court’s stance in Miller rounded out a trio of Supreme Court decisions setting up key sentencing protections for juvenile offenders, the first decision was Roper v. Simmons in 2005. In Roper, the Court held that the application of capital punishment and the death penalty was a violation of the Eighth Amendment as applied to juvenile sentencing. Graham v. Florida, decided in 2010, protected juveniles convicted of non-homicidal offenses from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole under the Eighth Amendment. Continuing its protective trend under the umbrella of the Eighth Amendment, SCOTUS extended the protection identified in Graham to juvenile homicide offenders in Miller.

Read on to learn more about the Miller decision, the changes the Court made on January 25, 2016 in Montgomery v. Louisiana, and what is in store for juvenile offenders sentenced to life without parole prior to June 25, 2012.

A Tale of Tried Teens: Miller v. Alabama

In November 1999, a 14-year-old Kuntrell Jackson (Teen #1) decided to accompany two friends to rob a video store. On the way to the store, Jackson learned that one of his friends had concealed and brought with him a sawed off shot gun in his coat sleeve. Jackson made the decision to stay outside of the store when his friends went in. Ultimately, the store clerk refused to give the young boys the money they demanded and she was shot and killed.

Under Arkansas law, 14-year-old Jackson was charged as an adult for capital felony murder and aggravated robbery. He was convicted of both crimes. A motion was filed to transfer the case to juvenile court, but was subsequently denied by the court and affirmed on appeal. Further, a habeas corpus petition was filed on his behalf after the Roper decision, but was dismissed. While the ruling was on appeal, SCOTUS made the Graham decision. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal based on both Roper and Graham.

Subsequently, 14-year-old Evan Miller (Teen #2), a troubled young boy bouncing in and out of foster homes who had attempted suicide four times already, was about to have his life changed. Miller and his friend followed Cole Cannon, a drug dealer, to his trailer where they smoked marijuana and played drinking games. When Cannon passed out, the boys stole his wallet and took out $300 to split, but Cannon woke up and a fight ensued. Miller struck Cannon repeatedly with a baseball bat. The boys came back later and lit the trailer on fire, ultimately killing Cannon. Pursuant to Alabama law, Miller had to be charged as a juvenile, but the District Attorney was granted a transfer to adult court. Miller was charged and convicted of murder in the course of arson, which carries a mandatory minimum of life without parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals confirmed the sentence and the Alabama Supreme Court denied review.

The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari and agreed to review both cases together, as one.

In its rationalization, the Court immediately established that children are “constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing” in the sense that they have diminished culpability and have a greater capacity for reform in the future. Further, the Court emphasized key points from Roper and Graham, identifying that children lack maturity and appreciation for responsibility leading to potential reckless behavior and are more vulnerable and impressionable by negative influences. Therefore, a fundamental difference exists when analyzing adult culpability for sentencing purposes and children. For Eighth Amendment purposes, the Court viewed age as a relevant factor for sentencing.

The Court ultimately held that “the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.”

Montgomery v. Louisiana

Now, for the case that was just decided in 2016, we need to flash back to 1963 when 17-year-old Henry Montgomery killed a deputy sheriff in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Montgomery was found guilty and sentenced to death. Shortly thereafter, the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed his conviction finding that the public nature of the trial and public prejudice prevented Montgomery from having a fair trial.

The case was retried and the jury returned a verdict of “guilty without capital punishment,” which required the sentence to be life without the possibility of parole.

Flash forward to when Henry Montgomery is 69-years-old. He has spent the last 53 years in custody and behind bars, even facing the emotional journey that comes with being sentenced to death at one point. Up until 2012, Henry Montgomery was prepared to die in prison until a little bit of hope cloaked in the form of Miller v. Alabama surfaced to light.

Most relevant to Montgomery’s case is the fact that the Miller decision noted the importance of youth and age on an offense: “by making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, mandatory life without parole poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.” Thus, the disconnect between a juvenile offense and the harsh punishments of life in prison without the opportunity for parole created cruel and excessive penalties for individuals unable to fully understand the culpability of their actions.

Following the Miller decision, Montgomery filed a motion for collateral review on the basis that life without parole for a juvenile offender constituted an illegal sentence. The trial court denied Montgomery’s motion on the ground that the Miller Court did not make a decision that was to be applied retroactively–or applied to cases that were conducted and offenders that had received final sentences prior to June 25, 2012. The Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently denied Montgomery’s application for a supervisory writ.

Upon review by the Supreme Court, they held that Miller was, in fact, retroactive, stating “like other substantive rules, Miller is retroactive because it necessarily carr[ies] a significant risk that a defendant – here, the vast majority of juvenile offenders – faces a punishment that the law cannot impose upon him.” The Court recognized the grave risk in disproportionate sentencing for which detention may be in violation of the Constitution on January 25, 2016.

How Does This Affect Other Juvenile Homicide Offenders?

The Supreme Court’s ruling on January 25, 2016 opened the door to hundreds of miracles. While it did not give all juveniles sentenced to prison for life without parole prior to June 25, 2012 a free pass, it gave them the right to re-sentencing hearings, if they are able to provide proof of rehabilitation, change, and evidence of good behavior during their time behind bars. It will be up to the states to review the case and make a decision as to whether the individual may be released or resentenced under the new Supreme Court holding.

This ruling was considered a win for juvenile law advocates who have been fighting to give a second chance at life to those individuals that entered prison as young teens and have only know life as an incarcerated person for twenty, thirty, even fifty years. They were overjoyed at the victory in the form of applicable retroactivity.

However, it does not come without criticism. Since the Supreme Court reviewed the case from a state court and took a moment to note that Montgomery has, in fact, turned his life around in the last 53 years, they did not and could not rule on that basis. The state controls his release. While Montgomery is likely to be released or in some way benefit from this case outcome, other juvenile inmates could be in trouble if Louisiana amends its state laws regarding post-conviction relief. Louisiana could flex its state muscle and amend its laws to prohibit post-conviction review of cases based on federal, rather than state law. In that case, any individual within that state that was sentenced to life in prison without parole as a juvenile would not have access to a resentencing hearing. Currently, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Michigan have the highest amount of juveniles sentences to life without parole. Only time will tell what action Louisiana and other states with similar laws will opt to do.

Resources

Primary

Supreme Court of the United States: Montgomery v. Louisiana

Additional

Cornell University Law School – Legal Information Institute: Miller v. Alabama 

Cornell University Law School – Legal Information Institute: Romper v. Simmons

Cornell University Law School – Legal Information Institute: Graham v. Florida

SCOTUSblog: Further Limit on Life Sentences for Youthful Offenders

 MLive: The Supreme Court Just Gave Juvenile Lifers a Shot at Parole

 Juvenile Law Center: Montgomery v. Louisiana

Ajla Glavasevic

Ajla Glavasevic is a first-generation Bosnian full of spunk, sass, and humor. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and received her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Ajla is currently a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and when she isn’t lawyering and writing, the former Team USA Women’s Bobsled athlete (2014-2015 National Team) likes to stay active and travel. Contact Ajla at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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