The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a mandatory sentence of life without parole for juvenile offenders is unconstitutional in all settings and made its previous finding on the matter retroactive.
That means that as many as 2,000 such offenders across the country — including 479 in Pennsylvania and 37 in Allegheny County — will have the opportunity to seek release from prison.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the opinion that the changes implemented under the court’s 2012 opinion in Miller v. Alabama are substantive and therefore must be applied retroactively.
“Miller’s conclusion that the sentence of life without parole is disproportionate for the vast majority of juvenile offenders raises a grave risk that many are being held in violation of the Constitution,” he wrote.
The case decided Monday on a 6-3 vote, Montgomery v. Louisiana, involves Henry Montgomery, who was 17 in 1963 when he killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Hurt in East Baton Rouge, La.
Montgomery, now 69, sought review of his case after the Miller decision made mandatory life without parole for juveniles unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment. Under Miller, the court found that juveniles are inherently different from adults, “in their diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform.” Therefore, it said that a sentencing judge must consider a juvenile’s age, level of maturity, family and home environment, the extent of participation in the crime, the impact of family and peer pressure, and the possibility of rehabilitation before handing down punishment.
The decision did not foreclose the possibility of life without parole, although the court specifically found that it would be in the most rare of circumstances. That decision, however, did not specify whether Miller ought to be applied retroactively, and courts across the country split on the issue. Louisiana, like Pennsylvania and five other states, said that Miller did not apply to offenders sentenced prior to the 2012 opinion.
Therefore, Montgomery’s petition failed until he sought review at the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard argument Oct. 13.
“Today, the Supreme Court has recognized that justice must not depend on geography or the date on a calendar. While many states have already recognized the fundamental fairness of applying Miller retroactively, Louisiana and several other states continued to violate the constitutional rights of these men and women,” said Marsha Levick, deputy director of the Juvenile Law Center and co-counsel on the case, in a statement. “Now, Mr. Montgomery, along with hundreds of others who committed crimes as youth and were sentenced prior to 2012, will have an opportunity to have their sentences reviewed.”
Attorneys for Louisiana and others who argued against retroactivity claimed that Miller simply created a change in procedure, which under the law meant the rules should not apply for those previously sentenced.
But Justice Kennedy said Miller did more than that.
“There are instances in which a substantive change in the law must be attended by a procedure that enables a prisoner to show that he falls within the category of persons whom the law may no longer punish,” he wrote. “[P]risoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.”
In Montgomery’s case, he has reportedly been a model prisoner, working the same job five days a week for 20 years, founding a boxing team, and serving as a coach and mentor to other inmates.
In attempting to alleviate concerns over what thousands of resentencing hearings might do to the criminal justice system, the majority opinion offers a possible alternative — permitting offenders to seek parole.
“Extending parole eligibility to juvenile offenders does not impose an onerous burden on the states, nor does it disturb the finality of state convictions,” Justice Kennedy wrote.
The executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, which opposed retroactivity, called the decision a difficult one for victims’ families. Association members will seek to preserve public safety under the ruling, Richard Long said. He said it was too early to consider the specifics of how offenders will seek review. A message to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles was not returned.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, there are 479 people convicted as juveniles who are serving life without parole, the longest one from Philadelphia County who was committed to the prison system in 1953. In Allegheny County, the district attorney’s office has identified 37 such offenders. The longest-serving dates to a crime committed in 1968.
Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, wrote a sarcasm-laced dissenting opinion. He said the majority’s opinion was a “whole distortion” of Miller and a “devious way of eliminating life without parole for juvenile offenders. The court might have done that expressly (as we know, the court can decree anything), but that would have been something of an embarrassment. It is plain as day that the majority is not applying Miller, but rewriting it.”
First Published: January 26, 2016, 5:15 a.m.
Updated: January 26, 2016, 5:29 a.m.