University News Last updated 06 May 2009
A group of seven law students from Birmingham City University are working on the defence brief of an American teenager who was sentenced to life at the age of 13.
The team led by Professor of American Public Law, Julian Killingley, is working in conjunction with Professors Constance de la Vega and Michelle Leighton of the University Of San Francisco School Of Law, the Bar of England and Wales Human Rights Committee and the Law Society's International Human Rights Committee. The defendant, Joe Sullivan, who is mentally and physically disabled, has spent the last 20 years behind bars after being convicted of rape in the state of Florida.
The Birmingham City University students who are studying the LL.B. Honours degree and the LL.M. in International Human Rights degree have been preparing for the case since early February. On Monday 4 May the US Supreme Court granted Sullivan's defence team permission to argue that his punishment was cruel and unusual, contrary to the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. Now the Birmingham team could find themselves working with legal experts from every member state of the Council of Europe. As the English legal profession is the one most closely related to the American profession, its views hold particular weight on matters of English common law and international law. The views of other common law professions are also highly influential and the views of civil law countries are influential on international law. This would be a similar situation to the Guantanamo Bay human rights case where foreign lawyers were allowed to be involved in the defence of those imprisoned.
Professor Killingley said: "The issue with this case is not whether he did it or not but whether life imprisonment without possibility of parole is an appropriate punishment for a 13-year-old child committing such a crime.
"The students on my team will gain invaluable experience by being involved in a real life case and this will help them when they leave University and enter the legal profession."