Ruling in Bassett murder case, state high court rejects life without parole for youth

Washington state’s Supreme Court has ruled that sentencing children to life without parole constitutes cruel punishment and is unconstitutional.

Thursday’s 5-4 ruling came in the case of a 39-year-old man who was a teenager when he was convicted of murdering his McCleary family.

Brian Bassett killed his mother, father and 5-year-old brother in 1995 when he was 16. He was convicted of three counts of aggravated first-degree murder.

A judge at the time called him “a walking advertisement” for the death penalty and sentenced him to three consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, which was the mandatory sentence at the time.

Bassett and his friend Nicholas J. McDonald were charged with the slayings. According to court testimony, McDonald hid the family’s bodies off a logging road, and the two teens stole a family vehicle and fled to California.

Bassett’s parents had kicked him out of the family home roughly a week before, according to Olympian archives.

In its Thursday ruling, the Supreme Court sent Bassett’s case back to the trial court for re-sentencing and said he cannot be sentenced to a minimum term of life in prison, since that amounts to life without parole.

“Bassett is correct that the direction of change in this country is unmistakably and steadily moving toward abandoning the practice of putting child offenders in prison for their entire lives,” Justice Susan Owens wrote for the majority. “As of January 2018, 20 states and the District of Columbia have abolished life without parole for juveniles.”

The decision follows a series of recent court rulings both statewide and nationally that address juvenile offenders, based on evolving science that shows the brains of children and young adults are not fully developed.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders were unconstitutional since they did not take into account the offender’s “diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change.”

In response, the Washington Legislature said state courts should consider “mitigating factors that account for the diminished culpability of youth” — including age, life experience and chances for rehabilitation — before sentencing 16- and 17-year-olds to life without parole.

It also said those who had been sentenced to life without parole as juveniles should be re-sentenced.

Bassett sought relief under that ruling. At his re-sentencing hearing in 2015, a pediatric psychologist who treated him prior to the murders testified Bassett suffered from an adjustment disorder and struggled to cope with the stress from a strained relationship with his parents.

Bassett told the court as a teen he was unable to “comprehend the totality” of his actions, saying his first thought when he was arrested was “how much trouble (he) was going to be in when (his) parents learned that (he) was there in jail,” according to the Supreme Court decision.

The sentencing judge was unmoved, and Bassett again received three consecutive life without parole sentences. Bassett appealed, with his attorneys arguing life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders were unconstitutional.

The state Court of Appeals agreed, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision.

“Bassett’s re-sentencing hearing provides an illustration of the imprecise and subjective judgments a sentencing court could make regarding transient immaturity and irreparable corruption,” Owens wrote. “Some judges may find an infraction-free record from the last 12 years evidence of rehabilitation, but Bassett’s judge concluded it didn’t ‘carr(y) much weight’ because ‘prisoners have some incentive to follow the rules.’”

The re-sentencing judge also found that Bassett’s homelessness before the crime showed he was more mature than other kids.

“This conclusion could have easily gone the other way, with a judge finding that the instability and insecurity of homelessness caused Bassett to have less control over his emotions and actions,” Owens wrote.

Writing for the dissent, Justice Debra Stephens noted that the judge who re-sentenced Bassett specifically considered the immaturity and impulsiveness that comes with youth.

“The court ultimately accepted the original (life without parole) sentence, finding that Bassett’s conduct in the premeditated murders did not indicate transient immaturity or impulsiveness,” and that sentence was within the court’s discretion, Stephens wrote.

Bassett’s attorney, Eric Lindell, said Thursday that Bassett is remorseful for his actions and that he deserves the chance at parole.

“He went into prison when he was 16 with no hope of getting out ever,” Lindell said. “No light at the end of the tunnel. And despite that, he accomplished some extraordinary things. Just like the science behind this decision, he matured. He grew up.”

Grays Harbor Prosecutor Katie Svoboda called the high court’s ruling frustrating.

“I think that it is contrary to what the Legislature intended, and I think the facts and circumstances of this case merit life without parole,” she said.

Bassett is among a handful of inmates in Washington state who were sentenced to life without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles and who now apparently need to be re-sentenced, according to records kept by the nonprofit Columbia Legal Services.

Nga Ngoeung was 17 when he was charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder for the 1994 deaths of two other 17-year-olds in Spanaway.

Ngoeung drove the car that chased the victims — Robert Forrest and Michael Welden — after they’d thrown eggs at houses, and another teenager in the car shot and killed them, investigators said.

Sean Stevenson, of Skamania County, was sentenced to life in prison at the age of 16 in 1987 for killing his mother and stepfather and raping and killing his sister.

King County prosecutors said their office has one case affected by the ruling, that of David Anderson and Alex Baranyi, who were 17 when they killed four members of a family in Bellevue in 1997. They appear to be awaiting re-sentencing.

“A sentence of life without the possibility of parole will no longer be possible in that case,” the King County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. “We are closely reading the opinion to determine what sentence is allowed under the Supreme Court’s decision.”

That’s also the case for two Whatcom County killers who are awaiting re-sentencing, The Bellingham Herald reported. Ryan Alexander, 32, killed a neighbor boy in 2002 with a dose of insulin. Terence Weaver, 38, raped and killed a woman in 1996.

This story was originally published October 18, 2018 at 9:17 AM.