WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that people serving life terms for murders they committed as teenagers must have a chance to seek their freedom.
The court ruled in the case of Henry Montgomery, who has been in prisons more than 50 years, since he killed a sheriff’s deputy as a 17-year-old in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1963.
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, the states can offer parole hearings with no guarantee of release,
The 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.
Three years ago, the justices struck down automatic life sentences with no chance of release for teenage killers, but did not answer then whether the ruling in Miller v. Alabama should be extended retroactively to Montgomery and hundreds of other inmates whose convictions are final.
In the 5-4 decision in 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.
Through legislative action or court rulings, 18 states have allowed inmates like Montgomery to be given new prison sentences or to ask for their release, according to The Sentencing Project. Louisiana is among seven states that had declined to apply the Supreme Court ruling retroactively.
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Good.
I’m actually surprised at the ruling.
Sounds great…if there is training and education involved after they are released.
Right-wing hysteria to follow:
You’re not serious, are you? If this country cared a rat’s ass about anyone in prison more people would know that more men are raped in prison than women anywhere. Oh, and the chances of being assaulted or murdered? Yikes. Once convicted (rightly or not), a person no longer has human rights in this country. It’s shameful, embarrassing, and corrupt.
Consider this. If you are sentenced to life as an 18yo, you average life expectancy is 50yo (an additional 32 years). If you are a free man at 18, your life expectancy is 76yo (an additional 58 years). That’s a reduction of almost 50%. It’s criminal, and wrong for our society to do this. If we want to jail these people, we need to take responsibility. As it is, we just throw them on a leper island, and wash our hands. No amount of “training and education” is going to fix the head of a person who had to live through that.
Again, no one give’s a rat’s ass, including the left.