Wisconsin Supreme Court hears Ninham arguments

MADISON - Should Wisconsin teenagers receive life sentences without parole?

The state Supreme Court heard arguments in Madison Wednesday regarding a case from our area.

Justices agreed to review the case of Omer Ninham to determine if his life sentence for pushing Zong Vang off a Green Bay parking ramp in 1998 is constitutional.

Ninham was 14 years old when the crime was committed.

When he was 16, Ninham was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for chasing Vang, 13, to the top of the St. Vincent Hospital parking ramp and pushing him to his death.

“He was just trapped between these two boys who were brutalizing him, terrorizing him. He was screaming, crying, begging for his life - don't let me go, don't throw me, don't drop me, and they threw him over,” Assistant Attorney General Sally Wellman said as she described the crime to the court.

An appeals court upheld the sentence, saying “[a] sentence to life without the possibility of parole for a crime committed by a 14-year-old does not per se violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”

The case is being reviewed now because of recent rulings by the United States Supreme Court.

Those rulings raise the question of whether sentencing a child to life in prison without parole is constitutional in Wisconsin.

“We are challenging the constitutionality of sentencing 14-year-old kids to die in prison,” said Bryan Stevenson, an attorney with the Alabama-based group Equal Justice Initiative.

Stevenson says his client's sentence violates the 8th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

“In the last six years, the United States Supreme Court has held that children, because of their developmental status, are entitled to constitutional protections when it comes to particular kinds of sentences,” Stevenson said.

Wellman said those rulings have no impact on Ninham’s case.

“Our basic argument is that the United States Supreme Court cases that have said that you cannot have the death penalty for a juvenile, or a sentence of life without parole for a juvenile who did not commit a homicide, do not apply to this case because he committed a homicide. And we can impose life without parole on even a 14-year-old if he committed an egregious homicide,” Wellman said.

Stevenson argued the trial judge, J.D. McKay, was wrong when he stated at sentencing that Ninham was damaged in a way that he could never recover or be reformed.

“There should be some consideration of parole at some point. We are not arguing that he must be released but we are arguing that for very young kids we ought to hold out more hope than a sentence to life in prison without parole provides,” said Stevenson.

“Our Wisconsin Legislature has chosen to give trial courts the option to sentence a juvenile who is treated as an adult to life without parole and the trial court appropriately did here and they should let the sentence stand,” said Wellman.

Vang's family attended the hearing, but declined to talk with the media.

The Ninham family could not be reached for comment.

It will be several months before the justices release a decision.