When does a person become an adult? The answer can determine who is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Christopher Hicks was 19 when he was living in a trailer in Gillette with other teenagers and a charismatic 40-year-old man, a man facing charges for sexually assaulting his 16-year-old stepson. Hicks had been kicked out of his parents’ home in Arizona before traveling to Gillette, and that trailer was the last place he would live before prison became his life.

In 2005, the older man pressured Hicks and an 18-year-old into murdering two people who were likely to testify against him in an upcoming sexual assault trial, according to the Gillette News Record report. The older man told the teens they “owed him favors” after a marijuana deal went bad, according to court documents.

Hicks assisted in both murders — he helped strangle a young man until he passed out (but did not die) and helped open the door to another victim’s home — leading to convictions on two counts of aiding and abetting and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Each conviction carried a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison without parole.

Had he been a little younger, and therefore a minor in the eyes of the law, Hicks might have avoided a life sentence.

A growing body of neuroscience examining why the line between adolescence and adulthood is age 18 — when human brains are not fully developed until the mid-20s — is part of what motivated a new attempt in Sixth Judicial District Court in Campbell County to give Hicks a chance at eventual freedom.

University of Wyoming law professor Lauren McLane, in collaboration with the UW Advocate Assistance Clinic, argues in a July filing that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for people between the ages of 18 and 21 violate sections of the Wyoming and U.S. constitutions.

The argument is based on how similar juveniles are to their slightly older counterparts, both in terms of neurological development and, in some cases, in the eyes of the law. The filing asks the judiciary to change what it considers unconstitutional mandatory sentences for those under 21, which would allow potentially dozens of defendants like Hicks to get a hearing that considers their youth before sentencing.

Miller

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Miller v. Alabama in 2012.

Relying on a number of previous cases, Miller ruled that judges cannot sentence juveniles to life without parole without regard to their age. Citing the Eighth Amendment, the high court found that the sentences constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Since that case, 28 states and Washington, D.C., have eliminated such sentences altogether, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states must at least take into account an individual’s age before handing down such a sentence.

There have also been hundreds of challenges across the United States arguing that the same protections should extend to people between the ages of 18 and 21. As of 2022, the vast majority (if not all) of the challenges targeting updated neuroscience and the Eighth Amendment alone have failed.

“The data suggest that Eighth Amendment arguments for categorically extending federal Miller protections to those 18 or older are currently unlikely to succeed,” states an article in New York University’s Law Review. “At the same time, however, state constitutions and state-level policy advocacy offer a path to expanding constitutional protections for emerging adults.”

Some judges also found that setting the limit at 18 was not just a matter of neuroscience but of societal expectations, the review article says.

The latest challenges, however, focus less on the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and more on laws closer to home.

“I think most of these (recent) cases are based on their own state constitutions,” said Stephanie Tabashneck, founding director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior Neurolaw Library at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

In Wyoming, while McLane and other authors argued that mandatory sentences for young adults violated the U.S. Constitution, they also say the state constitution offers stronger and more comprehensive protections than the federal one.

The case points to sections of the Wyoming Constitution that provide protections similar to — though notably different from — the equality and punishment provisions of the federal Constitution.

“I think we’re in a unique position because of our case law and our constitutional language,” McLane told WyoFile.

Like most of Miller’s arguments around the country, the brief also presents the neurobiology finding that people between the ages of 18 and 21 have more similarities to teenagers than older adults. That means they are more susceptible to making bad decisions in situations of emotional distress, but the silver lining is that there is greater capacity for rehabilitation and growth as the brain finishes developing, the brief argues.

“A sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole serves no reformatory or rehabilitative purpose and is therefore a disproportionately egregious sentence for adolescents as young as 21 years old,” the filing states.

The filing also notes that there is some additional supervision and legal support for young adults, including in Wyoming. For example, if someone is placed in a Wyoming boys’ or girls’ school, the court “maintains jurisdiction until the person turns 21 years old, unless the person is discharged,” the filing states.

There are also laws that treat those under 21 differently, such as the legal drinking age or, more recently, the ability to purchase tobacco products. Meanwhile, car rental rates are more expensive for those under 25, the approximate age at which the human brain is fully mature. And under the Affordable Care Act, young adults can also stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

But why not argue for extending Miller’s influence to age 25 or 26?

For McLane, the answer has partly to do with Wyoming itself: The state is probably not prepared to change its legal definitions of adulthood that much.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence that the people of Wyoming — the judges, the magistrates, even the professionals — are prepared for that,” he said.

The record notes that 21 was the age of majority for hundreds of years under English common law, which was later adopted by the United States, but in 1942, Congress lowered the draft age to 18 and in 1971, the age was also lowered to allow 18-year-olds to vote.

But, as the New York Law Review article found, the judiciary in some states simply felt it was not their job to correct such rulings, whether unconstitutional or not.

Today’s landscape

While many of these challenges to extend Miller’s license have failed (including some earlier cases in Wyoming), there have been some key victories.

Washington allowed Miller protection for people as young as 21 in State v. Monschke. However, there have been some more recent state cases that call this into question.

“Washington has been a total soap opera,” Tabashneck said.

But while Washington’s decision appears less robust, Massachusetts has given arguably the most favorable endorsement of Miller’s expansion, citing neuroscience. There, it is now illegal to sentence a person under 21 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

However, in the Wyoming case, the plaintiffs are simply arguing for the possibility of reducing a life sentence based on someone’s age being under 21.

Still, many arguments are falling on deaf ears in the United States. But even if Wyoming doesn’t accept this argument today, Tabashneck notes that there has been a slow shift in favor of accepting neuroscience with regard to young adults.

“If Wyoming says this is inconsistent with constitutional law, that doesn’t mean that five years from now they can make a different decision,” Tabashneck said. “The science is extremely sound.”

Whats Next?

A Campbell County judge will consider the case first, and it could then go all the way to the state Supreme Court.

Either way, if Hicks and his attorneys win, they want him to get a new hearing that could affect his three concurrent life sentences.

Along with Hicks, about 2% of the Wyoming Department of Corrections’ inmate population (or 47 people) were sentenced to life when they were between the ages of 14 and 21. However, some of that group may have already been released, paroled or died.

If that legal challenge fails, McLane said efforts would likely turn to the Legislature, where lawmakers could change the laws themselves. Wyoming is one of only 12 states that impose life-without-parole sentences, according to the filing.

“If we’re not successful, that’s another option I’m considering,” McLane said. “It’s kind of a double whammy. I hope I don’t have to do a second strike.”