According to the Supreme Court it is illegal to give a juvenile the death sentence for committing a non-murder crime. If they were given a death sentence without parole that would be considered unconstitutional. It was decided in court that juveniles have to get “a meaningful opportunity to obtain release" if the crime they committed did not involve murder.
It is hard to say if this is fair or unfair. There was recently a case with a 16 year old boy named Terrence who pled guilty to armed robbery. He had robbed a barbecue with some friends. One of the people he was with hit the store owner over the head with a metal bar. Terrence was given prohibition and 12 months in the county jail. Only six months after he was released from county, he got arrested again, caught trying to escape from a crime scene. Now when he went before the judge, they told him that he was given a second chance when he was given prohibition and now that this happened they aren’t giving him any more chances. He was given the maximum punishment, the rest of his life in jail without parole.
Terrence’s lawyer then went to Supreme Court and made a claim that life in prison with no parole was cruel and unusual punishment for a juvenile offender who did not commit a murder. The Supreme Court agreed by a six-to-three vote. Their reasoning is that it was indeed cruel and unusual punishment which is protected against by the eighth amendment.
Just recently “The Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who commit crimes in which no one is killed may not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.” There are a lot of people who think this is unfair because they commit the crime so therefore they should know the punishment. However for the people on the other side they think it is very fair and that they should not be that severely punished if they don’t even commit a murder. A lifetime in prison they believe is a little extreme for robbing a store or a mugging. It gives all juveniles a chance to obtain parole and not spending the rest of their lives in jail.
I think that the Supreme Court made the right decision by declaring life sentence for a non-murder crime unconstitutional. It clearly goes against the eighth amendment. In some cases however I think that this new ruling wouldn’t be so great. I think they should be able to go case by case and see how each crime should be punished based on the extent of the crime. For example if someone commits a crime with intent to murder but no one ends up being killed, how should this be handled. According to the law, they would still get the option of parole because they didn’t actually kill anyone. I think this is unfair because they shouldn’t have to just necessarily kill someone to get a lifetime prison sentence. I think that it depends on the severity of the crime if they can get jail for life, it shouldn’t only be if they kill someone. I also think that juveniles should be treated the same as adults when it comes to punishments because they are old enough to know what’s right and wrong and what they should and shouldn’t do. They should be given the same punishment as an adult would get. There is no excuse for their behavior because of their age. I think that the life sentence law can be a good thing and a bad thing depending on the people involved and the crime committed.
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