<snip, BBM> Following the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
Miller v. Alabama2) states and the federal government are required to consider the unique circumstances of each juvenile defendant in determining an individualized sentence.
Montgomery v. Louisiana,3) a 2016 decision, ensures that the decision applies retroactively. For juveniles, a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional.
Research on adolescent brain development confirms the commonsense understanding that children are different from adults in ways that are critical to identifying age appropriate criminal sentences. This understanding – Justice Kennedy called it what “any parent knows”4) – was central to four recent Supreme Court decisions excluding juveniles from the harshest sentencing practices.
The most recent, Montgomery, emphasized that the use of life without parole (mandatorily or not) should only be reserved for those juveniles whose offenses reflected “irreparable corruption,”5) a ruling that Justice Scalia (in dissent) wrote may eventually “eliminat[e] life without parole for juvenile offenders.”6)
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Supreme Court Rulings
Since 2005, Supreme Court rulings have accepted adolescent brain science and banned the use of capital punishment for juveniles, limited life without parole sentences to homicide offenders, banned the use of mandatory life without parole, and applied the decision retroactively. In 2012, the Court ruled that judges must consider the unique circumstances of each juvenile offender, banning mandatory sentences of life without parole for all juveniles; in 2016, this decision was made retroactive to those sentenced prior to 2012.
Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview | The Sentencing Project
