Principle of Proportionality-State v. Booker: Tennessee's Delicate Entrance into the Miller Movement for Furthering Juvenile Justice

Conclusion.227 I. Introduction Sentencing schemes for juvenile homicide offenders have long been a contentious area of law for states endeavoring to ascribe just punishment for the most heinous of crimes-murder-while balancing the penological legitimacy and constitutionality for such prescribed punishment against minors.1 While the U.S. Supreme Court ("Supreme Court") has progressively laid the groundwork for many states' recent development and adoption of more proportionate legal doctrines, the states have also been given considerable autonomy in implementing their own statutes and case law, resulting in a broad spectrum of disparate outcomes for juveniles across the nation.2 One major outlier in the spectrum exists in Tennessee under the state's current sentencing scheme requiring a mandatory sixty-year (60) life imprisonment term with release eligibility after fifty-one (51) years for homicide offenders, including juveniles tried as adults.3 This statute still stands today as the single harshest in the country when applied to juvenile homicide offenders.4 The Tennessee Supreme Court ("Court") recently established a pivotal new precedent for lower Tennessee courts in State v. Booker when it specifically addressed the unconstitutionality of the state's automatic life sentencing law as applied to juvenile homicide offenders under the age of eighteen.5 In Booker, sixteen-year-old Tyshon Booker shot and killed G'Metrik Caldwell during a failed robbery attempt with acquaintance, Bradley Robinson.6 Booker was tried as an adult in criminal court where a jury convicted him on all counts.7 In compliance with Tennessee law, the trial court enforced the state's mandatory life sentence, depriving Booker of a hearing that would have permitted relevant mitigating factors to be considered in light of the defendant's juvenile status-this serving as the crux of Booker's appeal.8 Reversing both the trial court and appellate court decisions, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that Tennessee's law on automatic life sentences, when imposed on juvenile homicide offenders with no consideration of age or attendant circumstances, violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Court's conclusion intended to squarely address an issue of first impression and align with the proportionality principles already adopted by a majority of the nation.9 Even so, the Court's ruling in Booker came more than a decade after the landmark Supreme Court case, Miller v. Alabama, which es