Supreme Court rules prisoners sentenced as teens can seek parole

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which held that mandatory life without parole for those under 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments, is retroactive because it meets the court’s tests for being a substantive new rule of law and not merely a procedural one.

Since the 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision, which found mandatory life without parole sentences for kids unconstitutional, the number of states banning the practice entirely has tripled.

The Supreme Court said Monday that prisoners who were sentenced to serve life without parole as teenagers must be able to petition for their release from prison as adults.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory life sentences for juveniles is not constitutional. And, she said, in cases of second-degree murder – which accounts for about 35 percent of the prisoners serving life in the state – people might be sitting in prison for their entire lives for a crime they had very little to do with.

“Henry Montgomery has spent each day of the past 46 years knowing he was condemned to die in prison”, Kennedy wrote.

Kennedy emphasized that “children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change”. And Christopher Slobogin, a juvenile-justice expert at Vanderbilt Law School, wondered what the next step might be for a court majority that thinks the immaturity and impetuous behavior of juveniles, as well as their potential for reform, makes them different from adults.

The case decided Monday involved a Louisiana inmate named Henry Montgomery, convicted of a 1963 murder that occurred when he was 17. “It is our hope that state courts will now follow the lead of our highest court and a majority of other states around the country and give those convicted of crimes as youth a chance to become productive citizens”. Some states’ highest courts then said it would apply retroactively.

“These are persons convicted of murder who have already exhausted all their appeals and are now serving a sentence of life without parole”.

But for one of the attorneys who filed briefs in the case, the decision is more about fairness ensuring the uniform application of the law.

Joseph Aulisio from Lackawanna County and Kenneth Crawford III from Luzerne County are among more than 400 juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania who can be considered for new sentences or parole based on the ruling. Scalia said the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case and, “the decision it arrives at is wrong”.

However, there remained some question over if the ruling applied to old cases, as well as future cases. Louisiana courts denied his motions seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Miller retroactively applied to his case. These inmates were sentenced to life without parole for homicides committed when they were juveniles.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito dissented.

He was given life without the possibility of parole, but could now be resentenced or allowed to apply for parole.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson was out of town Monday, but a spokesman said the office had no comment until staff can evaluate the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. In 2010, the justices prohibited sentences of life without parole for juveniles’ crimes short of murder.