Watson v. Illinois

When he was 15 years old, Kevin Watson was charged with first-degree murder. Under Illinois state law, he was automatically excluded from the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and tried as an adult. Once convicted, he was subject to the same mandatory sentencing scheme as an adult, including imposition of a mandatory minimum term and mandatory firearm enhancement, which amounted to a sentence of no less than 45 years.

Juvenile Law Center joined with the Children and Family Justice Center of Bluhm Legal Clinic at the Northwestern University school of Law to file an amicus brief supporting Watson’s petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. Our brief argued that the Court should grant the petition for certiorari because automatic exclusion from juvenile court of certain youth charged with murder when combined with the imposition of mandatory sentences is unconstitutional, pursuant to recent Supreme Court rulings in Roper, Graham, and Miller, which established that youth are fundamentally different from adults in constitutionally relevant ways. Additionally, our brief argued that the Illinois transfer and mandatory sentencing statutes violate the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments because they do not permit a sentencing court to consider the individual maturity and degree of culpability of each youth convicted of murder.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Watson’s petition for certiorari.