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"More Different than Life, Less Different than Death"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this terrific-looking new piece by William Berry which discusses the Supreme Court's recent work in the juve LWOP case of Graham v. Florida and makes an argument for LWOP sentences to receive a unique form of Eighth Amendment scrutiny.  Here is the piece's abstract: The Supreme Court has traditionally divided its application of the Eighth Amendment into two categories, capital and non-capital cases, based on the longstanding notion that ?death- is-different.? In the recent case of Graham v. Florida, however, the Supreme Court applied its ?evolving standards of decency? standard, heretofore reserved for capital cases, to a non-capital case in holding that the Eighth Amendment prohibited states from sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide crimes...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 16, 2010 (boomark / email).