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<h1 itemprop="name headline ">Minors remain jailed for life
despite US supreme court ban on such sentences</h1>
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<p>Many US states have done nothing to amend laws despite
ruling that banned mandatory life sentences for people under
18<br>
</p>
<p><b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/24/minors-life-sentences-despite-us-supreme-court-ban">http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jun/24/minors-life-sentences-despite-us-supreme-court-ban</a></small></small></small></b><br>
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<p>• <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/mar/19/supreme-court-juvenile-life-sentences">Quantel
Lotts: jailed for life at aged 14</a></p>
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<p>Two years after the US supreme court banned mandatory
sentences of life without parole for people under 18 years
old, most of the states that carry the brutal punishment have
done nothing to change their ways, leaving the vast majority
of the prisoners already on the sentence still facing the
prospect of spending the rest of their natural life in a cell.<br>
</p>
<p>A <a
href="http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=v851EHi2nSprGqN7FH6lalO5DW3Lq3J7">report</a>
from the Washington-based justice reform body, the Sentencing
Project, underlines what has become a legal paradox. In 2012,
the highest judicial panel ruled in Miller v Alabama that
mandatory life without parole for juveniles was a violation of
the eighth amendment that forbids cruel and unusual
punishment. Yet since then only 13 of the 28 states that carry
the sentence have amended their laws.</p>
<p>Even many among those 13 have failed to meet the spirit of
the supreme court’s ruling by replacing full-life sentences
with exceptionally harsh terms that will still see prisoners
who were convicted as teenagers – some as young as 13 –
languish in prison until their elder years. Nebraska has
introduced a minimum 40 years in custody for juveniles
convicted of homicide before a parole review can even be
contemplated.</p>
<p>In Iowa, the governor went even further and commuted all the
state’s juvenile life without parole sentences to minimum
terms of 60 years.</p>
<p>In a criminal justice system renowned for its toughness – the
US has the highest incarceration rate in the world – the
locking away of children for their entire lives is widely
considered to be singularly harsh. America is the only country
in the world, bar none, that allows kids to be sentenced to
die in prison with no chance of rehabilitation.</p>
<p>Yet as Justice Elena Kagan spelled out in Miller v Alabama,
advances in scientific knowledge of the brain has highlighted
differences between the adult and juvenile brain. She
concluded that such differences both “lessened a child’s
‘moral culpability’ and enhanced the prospect that, as the
years go by and neurological development occurs, his
‘deficiencies will be reformed’.”</p>
<p>The paradox is especially severe for as many as 2,000 who had
already been sentenced as juveniles to life without parole
before the supreme court issued its ban. The ruling left
unstated whether or not the prohibition should be retroactive,
leaving those prisoners caught in a form of judicial stasis.</p>
<p>Only ten of the 28 states affected by Miller v Alabama have,
either through legislation or court order, decided that the
ruling is retroactive and allowed for resentencing hearings.
But that still leaves the vast majority of the 2,000 in a
state of legal limbo.</p>
<p>Among them is Quantel Lotts, who <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/mar/19/supreme-court-juvenile-life-sentences">the
Guardian interviewed in 2012</a> shortly before the supreme
court issued its ban.</p>
<p>Lotts killed his step-brother during a play session that
turned into a fight. He was 14 years and 21 days old at the
time – an age he would be deemed under the law of his state,
Missouri, to be too young to leave school, donate blood, or
have a tattoo without parental approval. Yet he was tried as
an adult and sentenced to the most extreme punishment short of
the death penalty.</p>
<p>In the interview, Lotts talked about his remorse at killing
his step-brother, his conviction that he had changed, and his
despair at his sentence: “It's hard. I can't accept that I'll
be here for the rest of my life. They might as well have given
me the death penalty, it's just the same.”</p>
<p>Today, <a
href="https://web.mo.gov/doc/offSearchWeb/searchOffender.do">Lotts
remains</a> on life without parole.</p>
<p> “Children are uniquely capable of change and require a
second look down the road,” the Sentencing Project says.
“Juveniles have a capacity for rehabilitation that should not
be ignored.”</p>
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San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
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