Notes

This policy choice is not shared among all states. Twelve
States and the District of Columbia have banned life
Sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles;
In a handful of other states, no one is serving the sentence
(See Figure 1). Following the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court
Ruling in Miller v. Alabama (132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)), states
And the federal government are required to consider
The unique circumstances of each juvenile defendant
In determining his or her sentence; mandatory life
Sentences without the possibility of parole for juveniles
Are unconstitutional.
Two-thirds of JLWOP sentences occur in just five
States: Pennsylvania (472), Michigan (356), Florida (355),
California (293), and Louisiana (228). (Following the
Passage of California’s SB 9 in 2013, most of this state’s
Prisoners are getting new sentences.) Seventy-three
Children sentenced to life without parole were 13 or 14
Years old at the time of their offenses
Recent research on adolescent brain development
Confirms the commonsense understanding that children
Are different from adults in ways that are critical to
Identifying age-appropriate criminal sentences. This
Understanding – Justice Kennedy called it what “any
Parent knows– was central to three recent Supreme
Court decisions excluding juveniles from receiving the
Harshest sentencing practices.
Supreme Court Rulings
Recent Supreme Court rulings have banned the use of
Capital punishment for juveniles and limited life without
Parole sentences to homicide offenders and banned
The sentence for those convicted of any other crime.
In 2012, the Court ruled that judges must consider
The unique circumstances of each juvenile offender,
Banning mandatory sentences of life without parole for
All juveniles.
The Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot be
Sentenced to death for crimes committed when they
Were less than 18 years old, writing that the death
Penalty is a disproportionate punishment for the young;
Immaturity diminishes their culpability. The Roper ruling
Affected 72 juveniles in 12 states’ between 1976 and the
Roper decision, 22 defendants were executed for crimes
Committed as juveniles’
Having banned the use of the death penalty for
Juveniles in Roper, the Court left intact the sentence of
Life without parole as the harshest sentence available for
Crimes committed by people under 18. Most of the 72
Individuals who were on death row prior to the Roper
Decision had their sentences converted to life without
Parole. In Graham v. Florida, the Court banned the use
Of life without parole for juveniles not convicted of
Homicide. The ruling applied to at least 123 prisoners –
77 of whom had been sentenced in Florida’s
Court precedents recognize that crimes that do not
Result in death are less deserving of the most serious
Punishments (Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008)).
I think that juveniles shouldn't get life in prison without parole and I have reasons why and info about their lives in prison there while they are being treated like adults and today more than 2,500 juveniles is in prison and with no parole which I think is wrong and I will explain why I think that. OK first off when juveniles go to prison and come out again I believe that they become a better person and realize that what they done was stupid and try to move on and forget about and even they will stop being bad because they won’t want to go back to prison because they probably say how hard it was to live in prison and if they get life in prison they won’t have a change to get out and start again and stop being bad and my 2nd reason is that they would change when they get out and become a better person and if they stay in prison they won’t be able to become a good person and these are just some reasons that I came up with and I believe that there is a lot more and there is a lot of information that proves that giving juveniles life in prison without parole is wrong and shouldn't be allowed and there is a lot of info about juveniles who got out and changed and started a whole new life and I think that they just need a 2nd chance because life without parole means no chances to become a better person and we all just need to remember that people can change and become a better person then when they used to be kids and also could just grow up and look back at the whole thing and realize It was stupid and change and life in prison without parole is just not fair for those who wants to change The majority of sentences to life without parole for youth have been imposed in states where judges are obligated to impose it as a mandatory sentence, without consideration of any factors relating to a child’s age or life circumstances. More than 25% of people serving life without parole after being sentenced as children were convicted of felony murder or accomplice liability, meaning they were not the primary perpetrators of the crime, and may not have even been present at the time someone was killed. The majority of youth sentenced to life without parole are concentrated in just five states: California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. (California’s Senate Bill 9, the Fair Sentencing of Youth Act, provides re-sentencing and parole opportunities to youth under 18 sentenced to life without parole. The bill was signed by Governor Brown in 2012 and applies retroactively to the nearly 300 “juvenile lifers” currently serving in California prisons.) Children sentence to life in prison without parole are often the most vulnerable members of our society. Nearly 80 percent of juvenile lifers reported witnessing violence in their homes; more than half (54.1%) witnessed weekly violence in their neighborhoods. African American youth are sentenced to life without parole as children at a per capita rate that is 10 times that of White youth. 80 percent of girls and nearly half of all children sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole have been physically abused. 77 percent of girls and 20 percent of all youth lifers said they have been sexually abused so they shouldn't get life in prison Jennifer Pruitt can hardly remember a time when she felt safe. She says her father beat her until her eyes were blackened. He beat her mother and brothers. He drank and crashed their family cars, she says, and then he came home and beat them some more. And starting when she was about 10, Jennifer says, Denny Pruitt would arrange some alone time with her in a bedroom. When she told her mother about the abuse, her father called Jennifer a bitch and a liar. When she ran away from home, which she did increasingly often, the police would tell her she should feel lucky she had two parents, and then bring her back home. The Pruitt’s lived in a modest bungalow on Cornell Street in Pontiac, a struggling Rust Belt Detroit suburb. When Jennifer was about 15 she met Donnell Miracle, a drinking buddy of Denny’s. Blond and tomboyish at 23, Donnell had just moved in with a friend on Cornell Street after breaking up with her daughter’s father. She fit right in with the hard-drinking, blue-collar neighborhood men Denny worked with at General Motors. Donnell and her toddler daughter lived on Donnell’s welfare checks while she tried to figure out her next move. “I don’t remember knowing too much about what was going on at her house,” Donnell recalls of Jennifer. “I just knew she was troubled.” Donnell says she had herself been molested by multiple men throughout her childhood, and perhaps she recognized something in Jennifer that made her feel protective. “She was a good girl, and I wanted her to have something different,” Donnell says. The older woman would occasionally hire Jennifer to babysit her daughter, and soon Jennifer was spending a lot of time at Donnell’s house. They never talked directly about the abuse, but Jennifer sensed that Donnell’s house was a safe place to let her guard down. “If I said, ‘I hate my parents,’” Jennifer recalls, “she never said, ‘don’t say that.’ I didn’t have to pretend.” And one August day in 1992, with Denny screaming, calling Jennifer a slut, she finally broke down and walked over to Donnell’s house, shaking, crying, wild-eyed. “What’s wrong with you?” Donnell asked. “I f---ing can’t stand this s---,” Jennifer choked out. “My father’s a f---ing a--hole. I’m not going back there.” It was a warm, clear day — blue sky, Midwest sun — and Jennifer was weak-kneed with relief when Donnell answered, “You don’t have to.” Image for Evan Miller, Alabama Evan Miller, Alabama • One of the two defendants in last year’s Supreme Court case, Miller v. Alabama. • He was regularly beaten by his father and was in and out of foster care, say news reports and court documents. • While partying with one of his mother's drug dealers, Miller, then 14, tried to rob the man, Cole Cannon. The situation deteriorated. Miller beat Cannon and set his trailer on fire. • Law initially required that Miller be tried as a juvenile, but prosecutors sought permission to try him as an adult. Jennifer stayed with Donnell and didn't go back home ever again, though not for reasons either of them could have imagined at the time. Almost precisely one year later, Jennifer and Donnell were both convicted of homicide — for Donnell, first-degree murder, and for Jennifer, felony murder — and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Felony murder is a guilt-by-association conviction: If a victim dies while a felony is being committed, all the people committing that felony — whether or not they pulled the trigger, had a weapon or were even present at the time of the killing — can be treated as murderers under the law. Both women remain at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, in Michigan, to this day. Nationwide, there are at least 1,200 people serving life sentences without parole for crimes they committed when they were children. No central agency tracks these sentences, so reliable numbers are hard to come by. A 2008 Amnesty International/Human Rights Watch (HRW) report counted 2,484 such people. A 2009 Heritage Foundation report took issue with their methodology and put the number at a more conservative 1,291. In addition, thousands more teenagers have been sentenced to life with the possibility of parole (which most experts agree is, in practice, the same sentence, given how rarely lifers get parole), or to DE fact life sentences of 60 years or more. The United States is the only country in the world where kids are sentenced to die in prison. A common perception is that these kids are “the worst of the worst,” and indeed, many juveniles sentenced to life have done terrible things. But HRW estimates that a quarter of them were, like Jennifer, convicted of “aiding and abetting” or of felony murders. Almost 60 percent had no prior criminal convictions. More than 70 juveniles were just 13 or 14 years old at the time of their crime — some so small when they arrived in prison that all the uniforms were too big for them. Anecdotal, many, like Jennifer, had been subjected to abuse and neglect, their childhoods marred by instability, poverty and violent or criminal behavior by the adults in their life. Image for Jacob Ind, Colorado Jacob Ind, Colorado • after years of physical and emotional abuse, including rape by his parents, Ind began plotting to kill them, he told PBS Frontline. • He was 15 when he shot and stabbed his mother and stepfather with a friend's help. • They were tried as adults, and given mandatory sentences of life without parole. Now in his 30s, Ind spent years in superman solitary confinement, with no human contact for 23 hours a day. “Almost all of these kids have been failed in a deep, deep way,” says Deborah La Belle, an Ann Arbor attorney who last year won a landmark lawsuit on behalf of Jennifer and other juvenile lifers in Michigan. “We should have shame for our failure to protect (them).” Ruling in LaBelle’s lawsuit, Hill v. Snyder, a federal judge eliminated life without parole for juveniles already serving those sentences in Michigan; he wrote that juvenile lifers must be “fairly considered for parole.” LaBelle has filed briefs and counter-briefs about what a fair chance at parole might look like. Hill v. Snyder brought Michigan into compliance with the Supreme Court's most recent ruling on the subject: In 2012, the court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory life without parole is unconstitutional for juveniles. Whereas a handful of states — including most recently Massachusetts — bar juvenile life without parole entirely, the Supreme Court only eliminated the sentence in cases where the sentence is mandatory. Thus in most states, it is still legal to sentence a child to life without parole, as long as the judge has discretion to do otherwise. In Michigan, Jennifer Pruitt and the states more than 350 other juvenile lifers can, if they let themselves hope, imagine a time they might one day be free. They wait for an appeals court to issue a decision on whether and how they will each get their shot at parole so with all the info I wrote down I think you can finally agree that juveniles shouldn't get life without parole so I hope that you all understand why juveniles shouldn't get life in prison without parole