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END JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE
In the United States each year, children as young as 13 are sentenced to spend
the rest of their lives in prison without any opportunity for release.
Approximately 2,570 children are sentenced to juvenile life without parole or
"JLWOP" in the United States. Despite a global consensus that children
cannot be held to the same standards of responsibility as adults and
recognition that children are entitled to special protection and treatment, the
United States allows children to be treated and punished as adults.
Supreme Court Rules Against Mandatory Life Without
Parole for Children
The Supreme Court ruled in June 2012 that juveniles convicted of murder
cannot be subject to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole. Twenty nine states currently have such laws. The Court’s
rulings in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs build on a decision two
years prior that juveniles could not be sentenced under any circumstances to
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for non-homicide offenses.
Even when convicted of murder, the Court said, judges must be allowed to
take a juvenile’s age into account (along with other relevant circumstances) in
deciding the appropriate punishment. The Court specifically noted, moreover,
that “appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest penalty
will be uncommon.”
Hill v. Snyder
In 2010, the ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan filed a lawsuit on behalf of nine
Michigan inmates who were sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed
when they were minors and who are being denied the possibility of parole. The
lawsuit charges that denying the plaintiffs an opportunity for release
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and violates their constitutional
right to a fair hearing to demonstrate their maturity and rehabilitation as well
as customary international human rights law that prohibits the imposition of
life without parole or release sentences on anyone who commits an offense
under the age of 18. A hearing was held on April 21, 2011 on the government's
motion to dismiss the lawsuit and our opposition to that motion. On July 15,
2011, a federal judge ruled that the case can proceed.
Petition before the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights on Juveniles Sentenced to Life
Imprisonment Without Parole
In March 2014, the ACLU urged the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights (IACHR) to rule that sentencing children to mandatory life without the
possibility of parole violates the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
universal human rights principles. This hearing was held in response to a
February 2006 petition from the ACLU and several other organizations to the
IACHR, alleging that the human rights of juveniles sentenced to life without
parole were being violated.
Supreme Court Finds Life Sentence for Juveniles Who
Did Not Kill Unconstitutional
In Graham v. Florida, the U.S. struck down as unconstitutional the
imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not
commit homicide. Although the court found that the state need not guarantee
the offender eventual release, it held that if such a sentence is imposed on a
juvenile it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain
release before the end of that term.
Resources
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Podcast: Matthew Bentley: Irredeemable at 14?
Related Issues

Mass Incarceration

Human Rights

Racial Justice

Juvenile Justice