On Thursday, April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court passed a ruling designed to help make it easier for judges to make decisions when sentencing juvenile murderers to life in prison without parole.
The Supreme Court’s nine justices voted, 6-3, to adopt a ruling that judges do not need to find a juvenile murderer irredeemable in order to impose a sentence of life without parole.
Three justices appointed during the administration of former President Donald Trump played key roles in the ruling. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. “The notion that judges must make conclusions that are forever irredeemable is inconsistent with the Court’s precedent,” he wrote. “A state’s system of discretionary sentencing in cases involving murderers under the age of 18 is constitutionally necessary and sufficient.”
Three liberal justices of the high court dissented. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision undermines prior cases. She argued that the nearly 1,500 juvenile offenders serving life sentences wanted “the opportunity, at some point in their lives, to express their rehabilitation to the parole board and ask for a chance at a new life.
Sotomayor also wrote, “It is difficult to see how this approach is based on the law, rather than on personal subjectivity.”
The verdict originated in the homicide case of a minor man, Brett Jones, who lived in Mississippi, accused of killing his grandfather in 2004 when he was just 15 years old. Jones, now 31, was convicted of murder without parole for life after stabbing his grandfather to death during a dispute with his girlfriend, the newspaper said. Jones argued that he was not “permanently incorrigible” and should be eligible for parole, but the court rejected that argument.
In this case, Superior Court Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the Supreme Court’s decision. He upheld the judge’s decision not to grant parole to the juvenile murderer, even without a finding of permanently irredeemable facts.
“In dealing with juvenile murderers, this court (the high court) has stated that children are different and that the court must consider the lesser culpability of children,” Thomas wrote, “Yet, in evaluating the rights of (underage) peers to seek abortions, members of this court have struggled to emphasize the young woman’s right to choose. “
“It is curious that the Court’s view of the maturity of minors varies from issue to issue,” Thomas wrote. His comments draw attention to the fact that so-called “pro-lifers” often swap concepts in their language.
In 2005, the high court ended the rule that the death penalty could be imposed on juvenile offenders. The justices concluded from their review of a series of cases that minors should be treated differently from adults because of their immaturity. The court also prohibited life sentences for juveniles, except for murder.
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