Juvenile LWOP Unconstitutional

Is the imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on a fourteen-year-old child convicted of homicide a violation of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments when the child did not personally engage in any physical violence toward the victim and when the sentence resulted from a mandatory sentencing scheme?

In a moment of judicial sanity, the Supreme Court in an unsurprising 5-4 breakdown held that life for juvenile offenders without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional. Jackson v. Hobbs.


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