U.S. Supreme Court limits sentences for juvenile crime

The United States Supreme Court has made a significant ruling in the sentencing of juveniles. In the case of a juvenile who was convicted in 2006 of capital murder for a crime he committed at the age of 14, his sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole was ruled unconstitutional by the high court. Although the case arose out of charges in a southern state, the Court’s decision will apply to juvenile crime in every jurisdiction, including New Jersey.

In Miller v. Alabama, the Court ruled that sending children to prison for the rest of their lives with no chance of ever getting out was not in line with other Court decisions. In the past, the Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to the death penalty, and that juveniles cannot be sentenced to life without parole for crimes that did not involve a death. The Eighth Amendment was cited as rationale for the recent ruling.

The defendant in the cited case was convicted of beating a man to death with a baseball bat. He and an accomplice then burned the man’s trailer, leaving him in it. The accomplice testified against the defendant at trial in exchange for a lighter sentence. The Alabama Court of Appeals ruled that the defendant’s sentence, life in prison without parole, was not overly harsh given the circumstances of the crime.

However, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court found that, even though the murder was ‘vicious,’ the juveniles were high on drugs and alcohol which had been consumed with their victim prior to the murder. The opinion also noted the ‘pathological background’ of the boys. The Court went on to say that the sentence should have addressed all of these circumstances. Dissenting judges noted that nothing in the text of the Constitution or the Court’s previous rulings prohibits states from sentencing juveniles to life without parole.

Despite the dissention, however, it was ruled unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison with no possibility of parole. All states, including New Jersey, must follow the Court’s ruling concerning juvenile sentencing. Whether state lawmakers will look for ways to modify laws to continue to use severe penalties to punish juvenile crime remains to be seen. In the meantime, attorneys who defend juveniles may have a new argument in the sentencing phase of these cases.

Source: NY Daily News, “Supreme Court rules it’s unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole for murder,” June 25,2012