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Continued Coverage of Juvenile Sentencing Reform

By Steve Hall

Adam Liptak's latest Sidebar column is, "Standards for Juvenile Punishment."  It's available at the New York Times website and is scheduled for tomorrow's print edition.  An extended excerpt:The law is made up of rules and standards.Here is an example of a rule, established by the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons in 2005: If you commit murder even hours before your 18th birthday, you cannot be put to death for your crime. The same killing a few hours later may be a capital offense. The court drew a bright-line rule at 18.Here is an example of a standard, one proposed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. this month at Supreme Court arguments over whether juvenile offenders may be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole: Why not, the chief justice asked, interpret the Eighth Amendment?s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to require sentencing judges to consider the defendant?s age on a case-by-case basis??If you do have a case where it?s the 17-year-old who is one week shy of his 18th birthday and it is the most grievous crime spree you can imagine, you can determine that in that case life without parole may not be disproportionate,? Chief Justice Roberts said...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on November 23, 2009 (boomark / email).