Excerpts from the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court banning mandatory life without parole (LWOP) sentences for juveniles in the case of Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. __ (2012):
"The Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment 'guarantees individuals the right not to be subjected to excessive sanctions.' Roper, 543 U.S., at 560. That right, we have explained, 'flows from the basic 'precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned' to both the offender and the offense. Ibid. (quoting Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367 (1910))."
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"Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform, we explained, 'they are less deserving of the most severe punishments.' Graham, 560 U.S., at __ (slip op., at 17)."
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"Our decisions rested not only on common sense -- on what 'any parent knows' -- but on science and social science as well. Id., at 569. In Roper, we cited studies showing that "'[o]nly a relatively small proportion of adolescents'" who engage in illegal activity "'develop entrenched patterns of problem behavior.'" Id., at 570 (quoting Steinberg & Scott, "Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence: Developmental Immaturity, Diminished Responsibility, and the Juvenile Death Penalty," 58 Am. Psychologist 1009, 1014 (2003)). And in Graham, we noted that 'developments psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds'--for example, in 'parts of the brain involved in behavior control.' 560 U.S., at __ (slip op., at 17). We reasoned that those findings--of transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences--both lessened a child's 'moral culpability' and enhanced the prospect that, as the years go by and neurological development occurs, his "'deficiencies will be reformed.'" Id., at __ (slip op., at 18) (quoting Roper, 543 U.S., at 570).
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"Deciding that a 'juvenile offender forever will be a danger to society' would require 'mak[ing] a judgment that [he] is incorrigible'--but "'incorrigibility is inconsistent with youth.'" 560 U.S., at __ (slip op, at 22) (quoting Workman v. Commonwealth, 429 S.W.2d 374, 378 (Ky. App 1968)). And for the same reason, rehabilitation could not justify that sentence. Life without parole 'forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal.' Graham, 560 U.S., at __ (slip op., at 23). It reflects 'an irrevocable judgment about [an offender's] value and place in society,' at odds with a child's capacity for change. Ibid.
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"'[J]ust as the chronological age of a minor is itself a relevant mitigating factor of great weight, so must the background and mental and emotional development of a youthful defendant be duly considered'" in assessing his culpability. Id., at 116.
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"Such mandatory penalties, by their nature, preclude a sentencer from taking account of an offender's age and the wealth of characteristics and circumstances attendant to it."
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"And still worse each juvenile ... will receive the same sentence as the vast majority of adults committing similar homicide offenses--but really, as Graham noted, a greater sentence than those adults will serve."
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"('A State is not required to to guarantee eventual freedom,' but must provide 'some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation'). By making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment."
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"[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." Roper, 543 U.S., at 573; Graham, 560 U.S., at __ (slip op., at 17)."
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