Curtis L. Walker v. Dan Cromwell

Madison, Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer represented the Plaintiff seeking postconviction relief.



Curtis Walker has served 30 years of his life sentence for a murder that he committed when

he was 17 years old. The state trial judge in Walker's case exercised the discretion conferred upon him by Wisconsin law

to set Walker's parole eligibility date for 2071. Walker will notbe eligible for release until he is 95 years old.



Almost two decades after Walker was sentenced, the Supreme Court began deciding a series of cases involving

juvenile offenders who were sentenced to life without parole. Relying on those decisions, Walker sought postconviction

relief in the Wisconsin state courts. After the state courts denied relief, Walker filed a petition for federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 arguing that he is serving a defacto life-without-parole sentence that violates the Eighth Amendment. He requests a "meaningful opportunity” to demonstrate that he is no longer dangerous and that he is

capable of reintegrating into the community. Given the deferential standard of review we apply under section

2254(d), we affirm the district court's denial of federal habeas relief. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals did not unreasonably apply the Supreme Court's case law, which offers mixed signals on cases like Walker's, where a juvenile homicide offender is sentenced to life without parole as a matter of judicial judgment and discretion.



In 1994, Curtis Walker and an accomplice shot and killed Milwaukee police officer William Robertson, an officer they

selected at random for murder. Walker was 17 years old at the time of the crime. He was tried as an adult in a Wisconsin state court and was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide while using a dangerous weapon, as a party to the crime. Dur- ing Walker's sentencing hearing, the judge considered Walker's difficult childhood and capacity for rehabilitation before concluding that a lengthy prison sentence was warranted. The judge sentenced Walker to life in prison with a parole eligibility date of 2071.

Affirmed