Court overturns automatic life sentences for young Washington state killers

(Photo by Robert Nickelserg/Getty Images)

SEATTLE - The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the automatic life-without-parole sentences given to two men for murders committed when they were 19 and 20, saying judges must consider the youth and brain development of such defendants in sentencing them.

Kurtis Monschke and Dwayne Bartholomew were convicted in separate cases decades ago of aggravated first-degree murder, which under state law was historically punishable only by the death penalty or life without the possibility of release. The court has since struck down capital punishment as unconstitutional, leaving an automatic sentence of life without release as the only punishment for adults convicted of the state’s most serious offense.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already held that juveniles — those under 18 — cannot be given automatic life sentences for murder. But in a 5-4 decision Thursday, the majority of the Washington Supreme Court said the same rationale must apply to 18- to 20-year-olds. Instead, courts must consider their youth in deciding whether to sentence them to life without parole, the majority said.

"Just as courts must exercise discretion before sentencing a 17-year-old to die in prison, so must they exercise the same discretion when sentencing an 18-, 19-, or 20-year-old," Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud wrote in the lead opinion.

Bartholomew was convicted in the killing of Paul Turner II, a Tacoma laundromat attendant, in 1981, after telling his brother he was going to rob the business and leave no witnesses. He was 20 at the time, suffering from depression and other mental health problems, and requested the death penalty when he was arraigned.

Monschke was 19 in March 2003 when he joined two other members of a white supremacist group in fatally beating Randall Townsend, a 42-year-old homeless man, also in Tacoma, to earn red shoelaces, a symbol that the wearer had assaulted a member of a minority group.

The dissent objected to exempting such young adults from the same automatic punishment that older convicts must receive. The Legislature has decided that 18-year-olds can form contracts, drop out of school, get married, work a hazardous job and serve in the military — and it’s not unreasonable for the Legislature to also find that they should face the full consequences of their crimes, Justice Susan Owens wrote.

"Children are different, certainly. But Monschke and Bartholomew were not children when they brutally murdered their victims," Owens wrote.

She said no other state court or legislature had extended such protections to 18- to 20-year-old killers.

Although 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds can still be sentenced to die in prison under the ruling, the dissent questioned whether that could realistically occur: How are judges to determine whether a crime represents a defendant’s "transient immaturity," warranting a lesser sentence, as opposed to "irreparable corruption," warranting life without parole?

The ruling vacates the sentences Bartholomew and Monschke received and sent their cases back to Pierce County Superior Court for new sentencing hearings.