From the Equal Justice Initiative:
The U.S. Supreme Court today issued an historic ruling in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger convicted of homicide are unconstitutional. Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, sentenced to life in prison without parole at 14, are now entitled to new sentencing hearings. Today’s ruling will affect hundreds of individuals whose sentences did not take their age or other mitigating factors into account.
The Court today struck down statutes in 29 states that provide for mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children, reasoning that mandatory imposition of life-without-parole sentences on children “contravenes Graham’s (and also Roper’s) foundational principle: that imposition of a State’s most severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though they were not children.”...
Today’s decision requires the lower courts to conduct new sentencing hearings where judges will have to consider children’s individual characters and life circumstances, including age, as well as the circumstances of the crime.
While the Court did not categorically ban juvenile life without parole in all circumstances, Justice Kagan wrote for the majority that, “given all that we have said in Roper, Graham, and this decision about children’s diminished culpability, and heightened capacity for change, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.”
Stevenson cautioned, however, that sentencing courts’ discretion must be exercised in an informed and thoughtful way that acknowledges that children are biologically different than adults and less responsible for their wrongdoing, and that the courts should provide the individuals affected by the ruling a meaningful opportunity to show they have rehabilitated themselves and are appropriate candidates for release.
Stevenson added that historically, race and poverty have been powerful forces in influencing which children receive life-without-parole sentences.
The decision was 5-4 meaning that the 4 conservatives on the court think its just dandy to lock a child up in prison for life with no possibility of parole. Neanderthals! Up until today - we were the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that allowed this to happen.
At least on this one, a small majority on the court got it right.
This is a very important ruling, and though the pass-law aspect of the Arizona law remain, I read a gloss of the decision that seemed to indicate that the Court was open to hear challenges to that portion under the rubric of racial profiling. I could be wrong but my impression is that that tack was not pursued in this case at this time.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it remains to hold my breath--better not, actually--until the ACA decision. What I do think is that there has been a lot of hand-wringing about how the Court is already broken as if they had already struck down the law. I guess my point is that many good people live in a mental world in which their worst expectations about the future become already-happened events of the past. It doesn't seem like an effective way to move forward.
ACH! Hit send too soon.
DeleteOn topic, a decision like this indicates to me that on these decisions the Court still operates within "normal" contours of our system. The makeup of the Court sucks, unequivocally, but by a 4.5-4 margin. Bush v. Gore crossed the line for me, but the fact is that I'm in the minority (population as a whole) on that one that I even pay attention to it. My sense is that the right on the Court understood the principle that you could do something totally f@#$%d up very occasionally, but if you did it often people would start to call for your heads. The Court used its f@#$%d up pass for this Presidential term on Citizens United. One reason I'm not panicking is that the Court hasn't yet crossed that line (a second time), however many decisions they've rendered that I find appalling.
Is it possible that Scalia's mind is going south? Really, some of these rulings are beginning to veer far away from the body of law that he amassed in previous decades.
ReplyDeleteI think he's already been there for a while. He is outcome rather than process oriented. If he's in the minority, he has cover. If he's in the majority, he has even more cover. It sucks.
DeleteHas Scalia ever really been there at all? The guy has always seemed to me to be a colossal wingnut and bully who twisted any doctrine that he claims to respect to fit his personal prejudices.
DeleteHe's just gotten much less good at hiding it.