Justin Burrell, Defendant Below, Appellant v. State of Delaware, Plaintiff Below, Appellee.

Summary

The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed Burrell’s resentencing for crimes committed shortly before his eighteenth birthday. It held that the juvenile sentencing scheme, including a 25-year minimum sentence for first-degree murder and additional mandatory consecutive terms for other offenses, does not violate the Eighth Amendment or constitute unconstitutional overbreadth because it does not mandate life without parole and permits sentence modification after 30 years. The court also held that Burrell waived his independent Delaware constitutional challenge by failing to present it properly below and on appeal.