SCOTUS holds Arkansas sentencing law violates Eighth Amendment
July 15, 2012
Washington, D.C.: The United States Supreme Court has invalidated an Arkansas sentencing law mandating that juveniles convicted of murder be sentenced to life in prison without parole.[1]
The case before the Court was that of Kuntrell Jackson, now 26, who robbed an Arkansas video store in 1999, when he was 14. One of the others involved in the crime shot and killed the video store clerk, and Jackson was convicted of capital murder, a crime which carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.[1]
According to the 5-4 decision, the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment forbids "requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes."[2]
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion for the case, which split the Court along ideological lines. Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the liberal wing of the Court as the deciding fifth vote.[2]
It is likely that the decision will require new sentencing hearings for over 2,000 people across the nation, who were sentenced to mandatory like without parole for murders that they committed before turning 18. Around 60 of those 2,000 are imprisoned in Arkansas.[1]
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