Thursday, Dec. 31, 2015 | 4:56 p.m.
A man who has spent 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting young girls in Las Vegas when he was a teenager will get a chance at parole.
Andrew Boston was sentenced to 100 years without the possibility of parole on 13 rape counts in 1983, when he was 16.
A law enacted in 2015 makes people younger than 18 who committed a crime other than murder eligible for parole after they serve 15 years, the Nevada Supreme Court said Thursday. The court also noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that a life term without the possibility of parole for a teenager convicted of a non-murder offense is cruel and unusual punishment.
The court, in a decision written by Justice Michael Cherry, said 100 years before parole eligibility fits the category of cruel and unusual punishment.
Cherry quoted a previous opinion that said life without parole for a juvenile offender “means denial of hope; it means that good behavior and character improvement are immaterial; it means that whatever the future might hold in store for the mind and spirit of (the convict), he will remain in prison for the rest of his life.”
The court stated that Boston committed a series of “horrific crimes" against a 12-year-old girl, her 15-year-old sister and their stepmother that included forced fellatio and sodomy. He has been convicted in California of a similar offense.
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