Supreme Court gives juvenile killers chance for reduced sentences
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday granted hundreds of prisoners who were convicted of murder as juveniles the chance to have their mandatory sentences of life without parole reconsidered.
The decision could give those previously locked away for life the same chance for lesser sentences now given to all such juvenile killers, following the court's 2012 ruling striking down mandatory life sentences for juveniles. It also could make them eligible for parole.
About 1,500 prisoners in states such as Louisiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes some of them committed decades ago when they were teenagers. Such mandatory sentences are banned for juveniles today but that ban had not been applied retroactively.
"Allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity — and who have since matured — will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's 6-3 majority. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's liberal bloc.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Scalia said the decision, while preserving states' ability to declare a prisoner "incorrigible" and deserving of his sentence, "a devious way of eliminating life without parole for juvenile offenders." The dissenters also said the Supreme Court lacked jurisdiction to overrule states such as Louisiana.
The case focused on 69-year-old Henry Montgomery, who murdered a deputy sheriff in 1963 when he was 17.
"Henry Montgomery has spent each day of the past 46 years knowing he was condemned to die in prison," Kennedy said. While the state still can attempt to show that he deserves that fate and judges can impose it, Kennedy added, "prisoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored."