May 4 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether youths can be sentenced to life in prison for crimes other than murder, agreeing to hear arguments in a pair of Florida cases.

The justices today said they will hear appeals from Joe Harris Sullivan, who was convicted of raping an elderly woman when he was 13, and Terrance Jamar Graham, who was found to have violated his probation by taking part in an armed robbery at the age of 17.

A ruling favoring the defendants would mark an expansion of the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment and of a 2005 high court decision that outlawed the execution of murderers who were under 18 at the time of the crime.

Sullivan’s lawyers called his sentence “freakishly rare,” saying he is one of only two people in the U.S. sentenced to life without parole for a non-murder crime committed at age 13.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, urging the high court not to hear the Sullivan case, said that lower courts to consider the issue have “universally decided” that the 2005 decision, known as Roper v. Simmons, doesn’t apply outside the death penalty context.

Graham’s lawyers argued that “virtually the entire international community has condemned this nation’s practice of imprisoning juveniles for life without parole.”

The Supreme Court has said the central question under the cruel and unusual punishments clause is whether a “national consensus” exists against a sentence in particular circumstances.

McCollum said that “the sentence of life imprisonment is not uncommon for a juvenile engaged in a violent criminal activity, particularly where that juvenile is a recidivist.”

The cases are Sullivan v. Florida, 08-7621, and Graham v. Florida, 08-7412.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 4, 2009 11:33 EDT