Quartavious Davis has been sentenced to 162 years in prison without parole for a series of crimes he committed when he was 18-years-old.
With Davis essentially convicted to die in prison, his lawyer has branded the sentence for a series of Florida robberies 'cruel and unusual punishment' and cites the fact that his client was not charged with harming anyone physically.
Diagnosed with learning disabilities and suffering from bipolar disorder, Davis had no prior convictions beforehand and has said about his sentence, 'Might just as well say I'm dead.'
Davis was convicted of participating in a string of armed robberies in the Miami area in 2010. His accomplices testified against him, saying he carried a gun during their crimes and discharged it at a dog that chased them after one of their burglaries.
But Davis was not convicted of hurting anyone physically, including the dog.
Quartavious Davis is accused of a series of armed robberies including one at an outlet of Wendy'sNonetheless, Davis's attorney will argue that Davis's sentence to die in prison also constitutes 'cruel and unusual punishment' on the grounds that Davis is a 'first offender,' having never before been charged with a crime.
'Just as the Supreme Court recently held that the Constitution bars taking away all discretion from judges in sentencing juveniles to life imprisonment for committing murder,' said the attorney, Jacqueline Shapiro, 'so also is it cruel and extreme to allow unfettered prosecutorial discretion to force a sentencing judge to impose a life sentence on a teenage first offender convicted of lesser charges.'
Davis's unusually long sentence results from a controversial practice known as 'stacking,' in which each count of an indictment is counted as a separate crime, thus transforming a first-time defendant into a 'habitual criminal' subject to multiple sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines.
'Any law that provides for a mandatory term of imprisonment for a 19-year-old first offender that exceeds a century has got to be unconstitutional,' said Michael Zelman, the court-appointed attorney who represented Davis at his trial.
Zelman resigned from Davis's case after filing a notice of appeal. If Davis's new lawyer, Shapiro, has her way, the Supreme Court may ultimately decide the issue. The case will be appealed first to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
Quartavious Davis has been sentenced to 162 years in prison for seven consecutive sentences for firearm posessionUntil then, Davis's story will be a prominent case in point for both sides in an increasingly heated debate, pitting those who would protect society from the prospective dangers posed by serial criminals against those who see the United States - whose overcrowded prisons house fully one-quarter of all the prisoners in the world, most of them black - as a bastion of injustice.
When he was arrested on Dec. 23, 2010, Davis was an unemployed high school dropout living with an aunt in Goulds, Florida, a poor, predominantly black neighborhood south of Miami.
According to expert testimony at his trial, Davis suffers from a learning disability and bipolar disorder.
At the time of his arrest, he told Reuters, he was living on $674 a month in Social Security disability payments and hoping to get back into school to learn a trade.
On Feb. 9 of this year he was convicted of committing seven armed robberies at fast-food restaurants, a Walgreens pharmacy and other commercial establishments in the Miami area from August to October of 2010.
Davis, who still maintains his innocence, was the only one of the six men charged who went to trial. The others cut plea deals that left them with sentences of nine to 22 years in prison.
As the odd man out, Davis was convicted largely on the basis of his accomplices' testimony, court documents show.
Davis, who was not identified as the group's ringleader, claims he was never offered a plea bargain.
Davis's ex-attorney, Zelman, declined to comment on this point, citing attorney-client privilege.
Prosecutors declined to comment on any aspect of this story.
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