While out of jail on bail at the age of 17, Tyrell Benson put a gun to a woman's head outside a North Little Rock apartment one May night in 2002.
He raped her and then stole her car, but he didn't get far.
Police found Benson in the car several hours later. He tried to flee on foot but was caught by tracking dogs, court and newspaper records show. At the time, he was on bail for shooting at a couple across the Arkansas River.
Benson was convicted of charges connected to the rape, car theft and shooting. About a month after his 18th birthday, he was found to be a habitual offender and sentenced to 60 years without parole.
Benson, now 32, will be eligible for release in 2062. He is incarcerated at the Maximum Security Unit near Tucker in Jefferson County.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said states cannot lock away teens for life without parole in nonhomicide cases, and earlier this year, Arkansas lawmakers extended second chances to offenders serving life sentences for murders they committed as teens.
Neither relief has been applied to Benson, however, because his lengthy sentence involves a term of years and his crimes didn't involve killing.
In a lawsuit en route to the Arkansas Supreme Court, Benson challenges the fairness of his sentence and others like it, arguing that he is serving a "de facto" life term because of the likelihood that he will die in prison.
The suit claims that such lengthy terms, when given to teenagers for nonhomicide offenses, fall short of the U.S. Supreme Court's declared right to a "meaningful opportunity" at release for such offenders.
The Arkansas Supreme Court unanimously rejected that argument as recently as 2015, in Proctor v. Hobbs. That case involved another state inmate, Terrance Proctor, who challenged his term of 240 years for a string of aggravated robberies committed when he was 17.
But last month, the Arkansas justices appointed Jeff Rosenzweig to represent Benson, who up to that point had represented himself and had his case dismissed in a lower court.
In his original appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court -- written on his own behalf -- Benson argued that his 60-year sentence is "functionally equivalent" to life, because statistics peg his life expectancy at 73 but he won't be eligible for release until he's 77.
The brief also noted that prison life is not likely to contribute to Benson's long-term health.
State attorneys, on the other hand, argued that such lengthy sentences -- while likely to exceed an offender's life expectancy -- are not unconstitutional.
In a recent interview at his Little Rock offices, Rosenzweig said emerging science has caused courts and lawmakers alike to rethink giving the harshest sentences to teens.
"Your average 16-, 17-year-old, no matter what the circumstances of his raising ... his brain simply has not developed, has not matured," Rosenzweig said. "You're not talking about not punishing people, you're talking about essentially incarcerating them during the prime of their lives."
Similar reasoning was applied by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2010 Graham v. Florida decision.
The U.S. high court has not said, however, at what point a term of years becomes equal to a guaranteed life sentence. Nor did the justices shut the door on life terms for youths: Offenders can still spend their entire adult lives in prison if deemed ineligible for parole.
Rosenzweig said it's unclear how either U.S. justices or lawmakers intended to treat nonhomicide cases such as Benson's. He said Arkansas lawmakers created similar ambiguity when they passed juvenile sentencing changes in March.
But what is clear, he said, is that if Benson had killed someone and received a life sentence, the state's new juvenile resentencing law could have made him eligible for parole decades sooner. The law passed with broad support of the Legislature in March.
The Fair Sentencing of Minors Act, or Act 539 of 2017, was touted as an end to life-without-parole sentences for youths in Arkansas.
The law also established a new system through which youthful offenders would be eligible for parole: Those convicted of capital murder could go before the state Parole Board after 30 years; after 25 years for first-degree murder; and 20 years for anyone not convicted of murder. (The Arkansas Supreme Court in September allowed several convicted murderers to bypass the law and seek completely new sentences in the courts.)
The problem for Benson, Rosenzweig said, is that language that made the new parole scheme retroactive for murderers did not clearly apply the same leniency to offenders locked up for nonhomicide offenses in their youths.
The lead sponsor of the bill, Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, said the language was narrowly tailored to appease state prosecuting attorneys, who opposed similar legislation that failed in 2015.
"2017, we came back and it was a concerted effort to work with all the stakeholders on the language," Irvin said, recalling that there were no objections at the time.
Lori Kumpuris, an attorney with the Arkansas Prosecuting Attorneys Association who worked with lawmakers on the language, said she couldn't recall why the bill was written in such a way that nonhomicide offenders already in prison were not made eligible for the new parole scheme.
She added that prosecutors haven't received any complaints about the way the law treats nonhomicide offenders.
In the spring of this year, the state Public Defender Commission had identified more than 40 convicted murderers still serving life-without-parole sentences. But the number of prisoners serving lifelong sentences measured in years -- instead of having their sentence stamped "life without parole" -- has been harder to determine.
As part of his research for Tyrell Benson vs. Wendy Kelley, Director of the Department of Correction, Rosenzweig said he's attempting to compile a list of offenders sentenced as youths who are likely to die in prison. He named a couple of other cases he's worked on in the past, but beside cases familiar to him, Rosenzweig said the list is far from complete.
Gregg Parrish, the public defender coordinator, also declined to speculate how many prisoners may be serving such sentences.
According to the Arkansas Department of Correction, there are 88 prisoners serving sentences of 40 or more years, but not life, for crimes committed before their 18th birthdays. Less than half of those inmates, 36, are serving time for nonhomicide offenses.
There are eight inmates in Arkansas' prisons serving a total term of 100 or more years for homicide or other offenses committed in their youth.
With jurisdiction over roughly 18,000 inmates, a little more than 10 percent of all prisoners in Arkansas are serving terms of more than 40 or more years, but not life or death sentences, according to prisons spokesman Solomon Graves.
A May report by the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project found more than 2,000 offenders in prisons across the country serving de facto life sentences -- 50 years or more -- for crimes committed before their 18th birthdays. The report noted that blacks and other minority youths were more likely to receive such sentences.
Only Maine and West Virginia had no prisoners serving life or de facto life sentences for crimes committed by youths, the report noted.
"I do understand that the quagmire happens with some of these cases," Irvin, the state senator said. "We may have to come back and change some of the language in 2019." She was referring to the next regular session of the Legislature.
Rosenzweig said he expects the matter to go before the Arkansas Supreme Court before then, with oral arguments possible in the spring of 2018 and a decision before the court breaks for next summer's recess. For now, he is in the process of writing a new brief out of Benson's pro-se arguments.
Ultimately, because state and federal courts are split on de facto life sentences, he said the matter is ripe for an ultimate decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As for Benson, prison records show that he earned his GED within a few years of his prison term and has completed courses in anger management, substance abuse education and parenting. He has also racked up a series of disciplinary violations in the past two years, mostly for the possession or manufacture of contraband. All are matters that could be considered by the Parole Board should Benson become eligible.
SundayMonday on 11/12/2017