Mandatory sentencing of juveniles to life in prison with no chance of parole violates the US constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the US Supreme Court ruled Monday. In a five-four decision, the nine-judge court ruled in favour of two convicted murderers - one in Alabama, the other in Arkansas - who were 14 when they committed their crimes.
"The Eighth Amendment (which addresses cruel and unusual punishment) forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders," said Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the decision. The outcome reaffirmed the Supreme Court's leniency to young criminal offenders. In 2005 it ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death, and in 2010 it said they cannot get life without parole for non-homicide offenses.
In the Alabama case, Earl Miller, a victim of child abuse, had been convicted of murder in the course of arson after he and a friend, following a night of drinking and drug use, set fire to a neighbour's trailer home in 2002. In Arkansas, Kuntrell Jackson had been convicted for the 1999 murder of a video store employee during a robbery in which he took part, although the fatal shot had been fired by another youth.
Sentencing guidelines in both states call for mandatory life imprisonment without parole regardless of age or mitigating circumstances - a stance previously upheld by their respective state supreme courts. Kagan wrote: "A judge or a jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles."
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