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SALT LAKE CITY — Robert Cameron Houston is the only juvenile in Utah state history to be sentenced to life without parole.
On Monday, his attorney argued that the sentence qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment and was the result of attorneys who were "soundly asleep at the wheel" when a jury sentenced Houston in 2007.
Houston was 17 years old in 2006 when he killed Raechale Elton, a 22-year-old youth counselor who gave Houston a ride from a Clearfield group home for troubled teens to a nearby independent living center during a fierce snowstorm.
After raping Elton at knifepoint, Houston fatally stabbed her, and he said he also tried to break her neck and spine. He was charged with capital murder, but the death penalty could not be a consideration because he was 17 at the time.
Instead, the then-teenager was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. After a weeklong sentencing trial, that was the jury's recommendation.
"Life without parole is much more like death than other sentences," said Chief Justice Christine Durham, noting the standard should be more like those accompanying a death sentence.
Houston's attorney John Pace said the jury should have used the same standards as in a death penalty case — weighing the aggravating and mitigating evidence against Houston and sentencing him to the harshest penalty only if the aggravating evidence outweighed the other evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Assistant attorney general Christopher Ballard, though, said there was no statute or constitutional provision at the time that required the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
But Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham advised Ballard that the decision the state's high court makes in this case will affect any future, similar cases and must take into account what is being weighed when a juvenile is being sentenced.
"Life without parole is much more like death than other sentences," she said, noting that the standard should, then, be more like those accompanying a death sentence.
Durham also took issue with the jury not being advised that research shows the tendency toward violence decreases as someone ages. Ballard said the sentence wasn't simply about future risk, but to "reflect the viciousness of this crime."
"This was his third sexual assault at knifepoint," Ballard said after the hearing. "He slit her throat... This was murder, not just rape."
At one point during the hearing Justice Thomas Lee pointed out that justice has two sides, and Elton's family is entitled to some respect and finality.
This sentiment was echoed by Elton's father, Bruce, who said having to continue to attend court hearings five years after his daughter's murder is "like rubbing salt in the wound."
"I just want everybody to know that the real victim here is my daughter and her entire family," Bruce Elton said. "On February 15, 2006, we also received a life sentence and it's not appealable."
"It's just (the sentence Houston) got," he said. "It should stand and we hope it does."
Email:emorgan@ksl.com
