Constitutional, or Cruel?

Article: A Life Term for Rape at 13: Cruel and Unusual?

I had mixed reactions when reading this article. When first reading of Joe Sullivan's crime (breaking into a 72-year-old woman's house, burglarizing it, and raping her, along with 2 friends) I was shocked due mainly to the extreme ages; Joe was 13 at the time. At this point, I was strongly in support of the life sentence he had been given. He committed an adult crime, and should be given an adult sentence. The Constitution goes against "cruel and unusual" punishment, but nothing is especially cruel or unusual about life in prison, right?

After reading through the rest of the article, my opinion changed. I considered the Supreme Court case Roper v. Simmons, which banned the death penalty for 16- and 17-year-olds due to the fact that they "are less mature, more impulsive, more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to change for the better over time." I agree with this statement and think it should be applied to Sullivan's cases and future cases like it. 13-year-olds can be very susceptible to peer pressure, especially when that pressure is coming from two friends who were apparently older than him.

I believe Sullivan should've been given a shorter sentence (15-20 years) which involved counseling along with prison. After the sentence, he could be put through psychological tests in order to determine whether he is still a threat to the community, or if the majority of his problems have been treated through the counseling and his growing up. These tests would then determine the severity of the remainder of his sentence (life sentence, probation, 20 more years, etc.), and other cases like this could follow similar procedures.