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Summary: On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on juvenile justice, ruling that mandatory life without parole sentences imposed on children violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
[25 June 2012] - Sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of release are lawful for homicide related offences in 43 states in the US. In May 2010, the Supreme Court had declared sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide related offences committed under the age of 18 to be unconstitutional. There are an estimated 7,626 people in 47 states serving sentences of life imprisonment for offences committed when they were under the age of 18, 2,574 of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In this week's decision, the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence any child convicted of homicide to a mandatory life without parole sentence. The ruling will affect laws in 29 states and is said to affect hundreds of children whose sentences did not take their age into account. Mandatory life sentences mean that if a minor is convicted of a certain crime - in that case murder - the judge or jury involved in sentencing have to impose a life sentence. It removes any discretion on the part of the judge or jury to consider relevant factors such as the person's age. The court was ruling in the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs. The ruling "is an important win for children," said Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who represented Jackson and Miller. "The court took a significant step forward by recognising the fundamental unfairness of mandatory death-in-prison sentences that don't allow sentencers to consider the unique status of children and their potential for change. The court has recognised that children need additional attention and protection in the criminal justice system." While this week's decision is a landmark in the campaign to end life imprisonment of children in the US, the Court’s decision doesn't categorically ban this form of inhuman sentencing. Sentencing children to life imprisonment is a form of cruel and inhuman punishment; it violates articles 37 (a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The US has signed but not ratified the CRC. Nevertheless, it has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. There is agreement internationally that 'life imprisonment without parole' (or 'life without the possibility of release'), is a clear violation of children's rights, but this only applies to very few countries. 'Life imprisonment', however, has not been consistently denounced; yet many countries still allow for children to be sentenced to life, which can range from 15 years, to the end of the child's life. The US is the only country where we are aware of cases of children convicted to die in prison. All legal provisions authorising life imprisonment for crimes committed when the offender was under 18 should be repealed, and explicit prohibition of life imprisonment should be enacted. Imprisonment should be the exception and it should be reduced to the shortest possible period of time. All states in the US allow for persons under 18 to be tried in adult criminal courts. CRIN believes that children should be kept outside the criminal justice system and the focus should be exclusively on rehabilitation. The concept of responsibility should be separated from the concept of criminalisation. States should design systems which keep children out of the criminal justice system altogether, renounce retribution and focus exclusively on children's rehabilitation. Read CRIN’s paper “Stop Making Children Criminals". Read the full Supreme Court's decision. Read the press release and the factsheet of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Read CRIN's report on inhuman sentencing of children in the United States. Visit CRIN's campaign page on inhuman sentencing of children.
In 1999, Kuntrell Jackson, then 14, and other boys were trying to rob a video store in the state of Arkansas when another boy shot and killed a clerk. Jackson was tried as an adult and convicted of capital murder. Under Arkansas law, he received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Evan Miller was 14 in 2003 when he and another boy in Alabama beat a man with a baseball bat and set his trailer on fire, killing him. He was convicted of murder and received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.