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Thread: SCOTUS - Juveniles Cannot Receive Mandatory LWOP

  1. #31
    Senior Member Member ted75601's Avatar
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    The victim is no less dead because the offender is under a certain age which is arbitrarily chosen by a bunch of old folks in black robes.

  2. #32
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Justices extend bar on automatic life terms for teenagers

    By Mark Sherman
    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — More than 1,000 prison inmates, some behind bars more than 50 years for murders they committed as teenagers, will get a chance to seek their freedom under a Supreme Court decision announced Monday.

    Court Ruling:

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...4-280_4h25.pdf

    The justices voted 6-3 to extend an earlier ruling from 2012 that struck down automatic life terms with no chance of parole for teenage killers. Now, even those who were convicted long ago must be considered for parole or given a new sentence.

    The court ruled in favor of Henry Montgomery, who has been in prison more than 50 years for killing a sheriff's deputy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1963. Montgomery was 17 years old and playing hooky from high school when he encountered Deputy

    Charles Hurt, who was on truant patrol. Montgomery pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Hurt dead in a panic, he said.

    Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, said that "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."

    Kennedy said states do not have to go so far as to resentence people serving life terms. Instead, states can offer parole hearings, with no guarantee of release if inmates fail to show that they have been rehabilitated.

    Louisiana is among seven states that had refused to apply the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling to about 1,200 inmates who may now qualify for parole hearings. Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana and Pennsylvania are the other states, according to public interest law firms that advocate on behalf of inmates.

    Many states either have no inmates like Montgomery or have given them new prison sentences or parole hearings.

    Monday's decision does not expressly foreclose judges from sentencing teenagers to a lifetime in prison. But the Supreme Court has previously said such sentences should be rare, and only for the most heinous crimes.

    In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the ruling "is just a devious way of eliminating life without parole for juvenile offenders." Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's dissent.

    Four years ago, in a case called Miller v. Alabama, the justices struck down automatic life sentences with no chance of release for teenage killers. But the court did not say at the time if that ruling applied retroactively to Montgomery and other inmates like him, whose convictions are final.

    In the 5-4 decision from 2012, Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the majority that judges weighing prison terms for young offenders must take into account "the mitigating qualities of youth," among them immaturity and the failure to understand fully the consequences of their actions.

    Montgomery himself became a boxing coach and worked in the prison's silkscreen department, which he pointed to as evidence of his maturation.

    Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the 2012 decision barring automatic life sentences for young killers, but he joined the majority on Monday along with Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan.

    The outcome in Montgomery's case is the latest in a line of Supreme Court decisions that have limited states in the way they punish juveniles. Kennedy also wrote the 2005 decision that outlawed the death penalty for juveniles. The justices also have barred life without parole sentences for people convicted of crimes other than murder that were committed before they turned 18.

    The court often applies groundbreaking decisions in criminal law retroactively.

    Montgomery's case highlights some of the problems that inmate advocates say plague the criminal justice system generally. Montgomery is African-American, and he was tried for killing the white deputy in a time of racial tension and reported cross burnings in Baton Rouge.

    The State Times newspaper of Baton Rouge ran a front-page headline after Montgomery's arrest: "Negro Held in Deputy's Murder Here." The story noted that "more than 60 Negroes were detained" in a parish-wide manhunt.

    The Louisiana Supreme Court threw out Montgomery's first conviction because he did not get a fair trial. He was convicted and sentenced to life after a second trial.

    The case is Montgomery v. Louisiana, 14-280.

    http://www.wral.com/justices-extend-...gers/15274295/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Helen69
    Montgomery was 17 years old and playing hooky from high school when he encountered Deputy

    Charles Hurt, who was on truant patrol. Montgomery pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Hurt dead in a panic, he said.
    So killing some bloke just cause you don't go to school isn't in the list of worst? Its not as though the killer was going to get beaten to a pulp, or even anything worse than being taken back to his parents/or the school.. .. ???

    As Ted said - 'The victim is no less dead because the offender is under a certain age...'

  4. #34
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Supreme Court ruling favoring juvenile killers will traumatize victims' kin, DAs say

    By Matt Miller
    pennlive.com

    Midstate prosecutors weren't focusing on the fate of the criminals Monday after a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juveniles convicted of murder must be given the opportunity to escape their life prison sentences.

    Instead, Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico and his Cumberland County counterpart, Dave Freed, said they are far more concerned about the trauma the high court's ruling will impose on the families of the murder victims.

    "We will certainly work with the survivors of the victims to make sure their voices are heard," Freed said.

    On the other side of the legal fence, Cumberland County attorney Ron Turo, a veteran of representing juvenile criminal defendants, praised the Supreme Court's showing of mercy.

    "From a juvenile defense point of view, we're very happy with this decision," Turo said. "Something you do as a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old shouldn't follow you until you die."

    The 6-3 Supreme Court decision requires states to offer the possibility of parole to those who were under 18 when they committed slayings. The decision comes four years after the same court ruled in the case of Miller v Alabama that automatic life prison sentences without parole cannot be imposed on teen killers.

    Monday's ruling means Pennsylvania will have to revisit about 400 cases of people who were convicted years, or even decades ago. It will supersede a 2012 ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which declared that the life sentence ban for juveniles didn't apply retroactively. The state court's stance has resulted in the denial of many life sentence appeals in the last few years.

    Marsico said there are roughly a dozen cases, dating as far back as 1966, in Dauphin County that will be affected by Monday's decision. There are three such cases in Cumberland County, Freed said, with the earliest dating to the early 1980s.

    The DAs said they weren't stunned by the federal court's ruling. "I disagree with it as it applies retroactively to these cases," Marsico said. "But I'm not surprised by it."

    Prosecutors have been working with the state Office of Victim Advocate to prepare for the fallout, ensure the families of those who were slain have input into the fare of the killers, the prosecutors said. "For the victims' families, this will reopen old wounds," Marsico said. "Most of them thought (their cases) were finally over and done with."

    The advocate's office vowed to keep families of victims apprised of developments from the Supreme Court's edict. "We are currently working hard to inform and empower our victims about today's ruling and will ensure their voices are heard during any possible parole considerations that may result from today's decision," it said in a prepared statement.

    Until Monday's decision, Pennsylvania law still allowed judges to impose life sentences on teens convicted of murder, provided they conducted evaluations to determine whether the defendant was a danger to society who had to be jailed until death.

    Judges must sentence teens convicted of first- or second-degree murder to at least 35 to 70 years in prison.

    A decision is such a case is imminent in Dauphin County Court. In March, Judge Scott A. Evans will have to decide whether to sentence Zhaire Dekeyser to life for a first-degree murder conviction a jury handed down earlier this month. Dekeyser was 17 when police said he shot and killed 32-year-old Dailyl Jones during a December 2013 robbery in Harrisburg.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys were still trying to digest Monday's Supreme Court ruling and sort out the mechanics of how the decision will be put into practice in Pennsylvania. One question is whether defendants will have to be resentenced or instead be eligible for parole hearings to argue for their release.

    "It remains to be seen how this will play out," Freed said.

    http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/01..._article_small
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #35
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    April 28, 2021

    Evan Miller, Juvenile Lifer from Miller v. Alabama, Re-Sentenced To LWOP

    In 2003, at the age of 14, Evan Miller beat his neighbor with a bat and then set his trailer on fire in the town of Moulton, Alabama. A jury convicted him of murder in 2006 and he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. At the time, Alabama law mandated that juveniles convicted of murder die in prison even if a judge or jury would have thought that Evan’s youth and its attendant characteristic, along with the nature of the crime, made a lesser sentence appropriate. In other words, the sentencer was unable to consider and give effect to Evan’s compelling mitigation, which included:

    Evan grew up under conditions of violent physical abuse, extreme neglect, and severe poverty. Both his parents were alcoholics and his mother was also addicted to illegal drugs. The family moved so often that, at trial, his mother could not recall all the schools Evan had attended.

    Evan’s father frequently beat Evan, his mother, and his siblings severely. After one such incident, Evan attempted to hang himself in order to escape his father's violence. Evan was five years old at this time. He went on to attempt suicide five more times during his childhood. At age six he began receiving mental health treatment and was then treated intermittently by several local mental health centers. He also attempted to escape his brutalizing environment by drinking and using drugs, beginning as early as age eight.

    When Evan was ten, state authorities finally responded to his father’s abuse by removing Evan and his siblings from their home and placing them in foster care. His parents divorced at that time. After he was returned to the custody of his drug-addicted mother a few years later, she continued to fail to provide him with the most basic necessities or even minimal supervision. With no guidance or support, Evan followed his parents' models: his own drug addiction continued to escalate, ultimately leading to daily off-label ingestion of prescription medications in addition to frequent use of marijuana and crystal methamphetamines.

    On the night of the murder, Evan and a friend were smoking 420 and playing drinking games with the victim (one of Evan’s mother’s drug dealers) before the boys robbed and killed him.

    The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently reversed Evan’s LWOP sentence and held that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.” Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 465 (2012). That’s because such mandatory schemes prevent those meting out punishment from considering a juvenile’s “lessened culpability” and greater “capacity for change.” Indeed, Miller reasoned:

    G]iven all 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. That is especially so because of the great difficulty we noted in Roper and Graham of distinguishing at this early age between ‘the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.’

    The Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in Miller gave hope to many juvenile offenders serving LWOP sentences that they might one day get out of prison. As did the Court’s 2016 decision in Montgomery v. Alabama, 136 S. Ct. 718 (2016), holding that Miller announced a new rule of substantive constitutional law that applied retroactive on collateral review. Montgomery reaffirmed that LWOP for juveniles is excessive for all but "the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption," and that children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change.

    In 2017, Evan had a resentencing hearing before a Lawrence County Alabama Circuit Judge. His lawyers presented a number of lay and expert witnesses to support the case that Evan should get a chance at eventual release. Yesterday, nearly four years after his resentencing hearing, Evan was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole in a hearing that was held via Zoom with Evan appearing remotely.

    Evan’s new LWOP sentence comes just days after Jones v. Mississippi, No. 18-1259 (Apr. 22, 2021), holding that the Eighth Amendment does not require a finding of permanent incorrigibility before sentencing a juvenile convicted of homicide to life in prison without parole.

    https://www.fd.org/news/evan-miller-...sentenced-lwop
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