High Court Strikes Invalidates Life Without Parole For Juveniles

by Ramon Solis –

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling determined that mandatory life without possibility of parole for minors in homicide-related cases is unconstitutional.

The ruling was based off the precedent of two now concluded court cases. In each case a fourteen-year-old was convicted of homicide. The first case found Arkansas native Kuntrell Jackson guilty of a convenience store murder in 1999, even though he decided to stay outside while the murder took place. The other case found an Alabama boy named Evan Miller guilty after beating a 52-year-old neighbor and setting fire to his home. The neighbor then died of smoke inhalation.

The court also claimed that only a small percentage of convicted adolescents represent incorrigible behavior and furthermore, that it would be unusual to see juvenile homicide-related cases that would require the maximum penalty.

“We therefore hold that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments’,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan, who delivered the opinion of the court.

Although the justifications in this ruling were nothing unusual in juvenile case law, the Supreme Court relied specifically on psychological literature and common sense.

“Over and over again the court emphasized as it has in other decisions that children cannot be held to the same standards as an adult,” said John Myers, professor at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.

Lack of maturity, an underdeveloped sense of responsibility, a propensity for impulsive behavior, vulnerability to peer pressure: the Supreme Court cited all these qualities of adolescent behavior to rule unconstitutional mandatory life without parole for minors involved in homicide.

The Supreme Court ruling has previously softened the types of punishment received by minors. Life without parole in non-homicide related cases and the death penalty have already been banned in recent cases.

This ruling by the court is a constitutional issue, as it pertains to the 8^th Amendment, but “society at large, and especially legislatures have been increasingly more punitive [towards minors],” said Myers.

“California has been typical of other states and has made juvenile statutes more punitive and harsh. There’s a long, long list of crimes in California, basically any serious crime involving violence you can think of in which a minor can now be charged as an adult now rather than in juvenile court,” he added.

The Supreme Court’s decision re-emphasizes the categorical delineations between children and adults. Life without parole precludes any mitigating circumstances that could demonstrate a defendant’s innocence.

“This is the very idea of a juvenile court, that minors have a greater potential for rehabilitation than adults and therefore their crimes should be assessed differently,” said Myers.

The Court did not assign any modified sentences to Miller and Jackson as a result of the ruling. As is the case with almost all juvenile justice, the courts have remanded the case back to the state courts for reconsideration.

This ruling provides relief to some two thousand juvenile offenders currently serving their sentences. It also further relaxes punishment laws concerning juvenile offenders: As recently as 1988, the Supreme Court decided under Thompson v. Oklahoma to get rid of capital punishment for offenders under the age of sixteen.

The ruling comes at the heels of similar legislation in California by Senator Leland Yee (D – San Francisco/San Mateo).  Senator Yee’s Senate Bill 9 would ban life without parole to minors in California. SB 9, however, would only grant the potential for resentencing to those that had already completed at least fifteen years of time in prison.

California would become one of twenty-six other states that have enacted similar bans on life without parole to minors.

“Today’s ruling was yet another step towards ending life without parole for juveniles,” said Yee in a statement, “The Supreme Court recognized once again that children are different from adults, and ‘the distinct attributes of youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes.’ Considering no other country in the world administers this sentence for kids, the punishment is clearly cruel and unusual.”

Senator Yee, in addition to working in the state senate, also serves as a child psychologist.

“Today’s decision helps to restore some rationality to the treatment of juveniles in our criminal justice system,” said Steven R. Shapiro, ACLU national legal director. “Surely, it is not too much to expect that judges will at least consider the fact that a 14 year old is standing before them when deciding whether to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, even in murder cases. The Court correctly held that laws forbidding such informed discretion before sentencing children to die in prison are unconstitutional. They also defy common sense.”

Previous Supreme Court rulings have ruled out LWOP for non-homicide crimes for minors as well as the death penalty for minors.

Currently, there are over 300 people serving juvenile life without parole sentences, according to Sumayyah Waheed, spokesperson for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

“Studies show that youth sent to the adult system fare worse and have higher recidivism rates than those dealt with in the juvenile system,” said Waheed Cases like Miller indicate that the tide has turned against the failed practice of prosecuting youth as adults.

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