Retroactivity sounds like a really boring legal subject. Montgomery, now 69 years old, was first sentenced to death, but then had that conviction overturned and was given life in prison without the chance of parole.
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This week it will consider whether to make that ruling – Miller v. Alabama – retroactive and offer parole to juveniles automatically sentenced to life prior to 2012, the Len reports.
Duncan, however, said Louisiana has not strongly contested jurisdiction because there is a “robust split” on whether the Miller decision should be applied retroactively to sentencing.
Three years ago, the justices struck down automatic life sentences with no chance of release for teenage killers. Does the decision apply to them too? However, because the court itself has questions, a court-appointed lawyer argued against that position.
Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Hurt was on truant patrol when he came across a teenager in a Baton Rouge park on a cool fall morning. In fact, the state could only impose a mandatory life term, whereas now a defendant can get a sentence that is significantly shorter.
The question of state versus federal jurisdiction appeared likely to sidetrack the case – the second one granted by the court to decide whether the constitutional ban on mandatory life sentences for juveniles should be applied to those sentenced in the past.
Louisiana says that virtually everyone involved in Montgomery’s trial is dead and that there-sentencing process would force the family members of the victims to relive their trauma.
When the court banned mandatory life without parole for juveniles, its decision hinted that it wasn’t going to apply its decision retroactively. Bernstein clearly had a few supporters, particularly among the conservative justices.
Justice Stephen Breyer at one point invoked the Salem witch trials to argue that punishments that were not unconstitutional at one time could be revisited later.
Katy Reckdahl on the case of Henry Montgomery and its context.
MARK PLAISANCE: So when Mr. Montgomery was convicted, the state had only one option.
Dreeben gratefully grasped at the chief justice’s invitation to switch direction.
The Supreme Court justices focused on the technical aspects of whether, and how, to apply the 2012 decision retroactively. There’s nothing especially substantive about saying juveniles can’t get the mandatory life sentence anymore.
Those states also say that reopening these old cases will be time-consuming and hard because judges will be asked to assess, sometimes decades after the crime, how an inmate’s youth might have affected his behavior. “It’s a matter of state law”.
“Leaving the punishment on the table is critical”, said S. Kyle Duncan, a lawyer for Louisiana, during the argument. A few prisons culled their rolls and gave prisoners sentenced to life without parole new hearings, in light of that ruling.
But there’s no distortion if you just have a parole hearing, interjected Justice Anthony Kennedy, who could prove a decisive vote in the case.
Depending on the outcome of their decision, thousands of inmates who committed their crimes as juveniles could potentially see their life sentences reduced. Seven others, as well as four federal appeals courts, have said it does not. “It’s not just the top end”.
Duncan argued that a rule making a sentence different does not necessarily reflect a substantive change to a rule.
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It’s unclear whether a majority of the court agrees with that assessment. We – which means the courts – don’t want to do the heavy lifting of sorting through every earlier judicial decision and asking whether it fits into a newly announced rule that doesn’t count as substantive.
