by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Seven hundred hours is equivalent to nearly 30 24-hour days. It is also equal to about 90 business days, which breaks down to four-and-a-half months.
This has been the time, to date, that Jacksonville attorney Bryan Gowdy has spent representing Terrance Jamar Graham who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for armed burglary and attempted armed robbery for an incident which occurred in 2003. Graham, now 22, was 16 when he committed the crime.
Graham’s mother retained Gowdy’s firm, now Mills, Creed & Gowdy, to represent her son during the appellate process and the constitutionality of the sentence is now being reviewed by the United States Supreme Court.
“It has been a huge undertaking,” said Gowdy. “The bulk of the work is writing the brief and also preparing for oral argument.”
Gowdy has filed to have cases reviewed by the Supreme Court before, but this was his first time presenting oral argument in the high court. It’s docket has increased to over 10,000 cases annually, and plenary review, with oral arguments by attorneys, is granted in about 100 cases per term. Formal written opinions are delivered in 80-90 cases, according to the Court.
Gowdy presented the argument of “Whether the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments prohibits the imprisonment of a juvenile for life without the possibility of parole as punishment for the juvenile’s commission of a non-homicide (armed burglary).”
He and opposing counsel, Florida Solicitor General Scott Makar — who represented the State of Florida — presented their arguments to the Supreme Court Monday at 10 a.m. They were both given 30 minutes to present their arguments and answer questions from the justices.
“I had done three moot, or practice, oral arguments for three weeks before the trial, so I felt pretty confident that I was as prepared as I could be,” said Gowdy. “I did one at Georgetown University and two more with the Washington, D.C. firm my firm was associated with, Morris & Foerster.”
Gowdy was surprised by the amount of people necessary to present an argument at the Supreme Court.
“(Morris & Foerster) contributed a lot of research and support during,” said Gowdy. “In this type of case you need a lot of people to help you and we had people from all across the country, from all different walks of life helping with research.”
Gowdy had just joined the firm of Mills & Creed when the family retained the firm, but partner John Mills was confident in Gowdy’s ability.
“We really didn’t know how big the issue was until Bryan dug into it and did a lot of research,” said Mills. “We’ve gotten a lot of help from people from around the country and Bryan has really thrown himself into it and done a fantastic job. It’s been advocacy at the highest level. Whatever the ruling is, Terrance knows he has had the highest level of representation. It’s been tough on the firm because we are not making any money off of the case, but that is one of the benefits of being in a firm. You have the staff to allow people to dig into something like this.”
The firm is providing its services pro bono and Morris & Foerster have provided media relations for Gowdy pro bono as well.
“Our office was flooded with calls from lawyers and media outlets, pretty much every major news organization contacted us after review was granted,” said Gowdy. “It was great to have someone coordinate our responses and contact with the media.”
Gowdy is back in Jacksonville and expects the attention and phone calls to die down as the Supreme Court justices debate the case. He believes an opinion on the case could be drafted as early as January, but could take until June.
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