The state of Tennessee responded to Cyntoia Brown’s appeal, saying that they were constitutionally in the right to imprison her for life without parole for killing a man who solicited her as a teenage prostitute.
Brown’s lawyers filed a formal petition in December with the Tennessee parole board to commute her life sentence for her first-degree murder conviction.
Brown caught national attention recently for her life story, which included shooting and killing a 43-year-old man who had hired her for sex at the age of 16. Brown was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2004.
She is not eligible for parole until she is 67. But a national #FreeCyntoiaBrown effort, that includes Kim Kardashian’s lawyers, is pushing to have
The legal response filed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the state court’s rejection of Brown’s appeal didn’t contradict U.S. Supreme Court precedent about cruel and unusual punishment, the Associated Press reports.
It is not clear what is next for Brown’s legal team in the effort to have her released from prison.