Inmate from Virginia Beach argues life term is unconstitutional

VIRGINIA BEACH

Darrell Perry is supposed to die in prison for a gunpoint rape and robbery he committed more than two decades ago at age 17.

But the eighth-grade dropout, who already has spent more than half his life behind bars, says keeping him there for the rest of it would be unconstitutional.

Perry, 40, makes his case on a five-page form he sent to the court that put him away, hand-writing his answers on the blank lines provided. He cites the U.S. Supreme Court and the Eighth Amendment, and he closes his argument with a newspaper story he has circled and underlined.

It is one petition among the countless filed by inmates who claim to be victims of an unjust system. But, legal experts say, Perry is right.

The Supreme Court ruled nine months ago that juveniles who do not kill cannot be put away for life without the possibility of parole. The case stemmed from a Florida boy who claimed that a life sentence for armed burglary at 16 violated the Eighth Amendment's protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

The court cited 129 such cases in the United States, which the justices said is the only country in the world to send juveniles who do not kill away for life.

The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based nonprofit that opposes life sentences under such circumstances, says the number of known cases is growing.

Thirty-seven states plus the federal government have laws to permit it, but so-called nonhomicide juvenile lifers are imprisoned in a fraction of those. More than half are locked up in Florida.

Eight are in Virginia. The rest are scattered among nine other states.

Perry's name is on The Sentencing Project's unofficial list of prisoners likely eligible for resentencing, said Ashley Nellis, a research analyst with the organization. The group has attempted to track data for years but some states either didn't keep figures or wouldn't provide them, she said.

Perry declined an interview request from Nottoway Correctional Center, where he is an inmate. He indicates in the heavy, slanted print of his petition that he intends to represent himself.

"My lawyer won't respond back to my legal letter," he writes.

Perry keeps his argument brief: "By a 5-4 vote, the young people serving life must have 'a meaningful opportunity to obtain release,' if they 'haven't killed.' Even Justice Anthony Kennedy agree that my detention goes against the Eighth Amendment."

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that some juvenile nonhomicide crimes are heinous enough to warrant life without parole.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 1988, Perry and two other teens targeted a woman in the parking lot of a Virginia Beach apartment complex, according to court records.

Perry admitted to pointing a handgun at her as she got out of her car. One of the others forced the woman into the back seat. Perry drove the car into an alley, where each of the teens raped her. Then they went to Suffolk, where they tied up the woman and fled, according to Perry's statement to police.

Perry was a learning-disabled teen with a dysfunctional family life, according to court records that include a police confession and an evaluation by a licensed counselor in 1989. He dropped out of school after nine tumultuous years, but by 17 had a job at a Norfolk furniture store.

The teen also associated with a notorious gang called the Pepsi Boys, whose leader was accused in multiple murders, rapes, robberies and abductions. The gang leader got a life term plus 403 years for his crimes.

In 1990, a Virginia Beach judge sentenced Perry to two life terms plus 77 years for rape, abduction, robbery, forcible sodomy and use of a firearm in a felony.

It's up to the attorney general to decide what comes next. The office has 60 days from the time it receives Perry's petition to respond.

Perry might not fare any better if his case goes back before a judge.

Some challengers have wound up with a new sentence that, while not a life term, will keep them locked up until death, Nellis said.

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com