Actually the Supreme Court did not uphold the sentence, it just refused to hear the case. This means the lower court’s opinion is upheld, because that is the last court to make a decision on the case. Bobby Bostic was sentenced to 241 years and he will not be eligible for parole until he turns 112 years. In 1995 Bostic had robbed people delivering Christmas presents at gunpoint, shot and injured a man, and stole a car. All of these crimes were committed the on same day. Bobby Bostic was 16 years old when he committed those crimes. He was sentenced in 1997, at the age of 18, and the judge who sentenced him has since said, “This is the only one where I regret the amount of time I gave. The amount of time is ridiculous.” Evelyn Baker was a judge for 25 years, retiring 10 years ago. The Bostic sentence was the longest she ever gave. The former St. Louis judge who sentenced Bostic had urged the high court to hear the case. She now believes Bostic’s prison term is unjust. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution “prohibits the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.” Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley argued the a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that outlawed life sentences for people under 18 who didn’t kill anyone, applies only to a sentence for one crime. Bostic was sentenced for his role in 18 crimes. His lawyers wrote in their petition that the unfair sentencing meant Bostic, “who committed only non-homicide offenses as a 16 year old, will never be fit to rejoin society, no matter how successfully he demonstrates maturity and reform as an adult”. With the Supreme Courts’s refusal to hear the case, Bostic will not be eligible for parole until 2092.
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