Mark Pike on juvenile sentencing:
In back-to-back cases on Monday morning, advocates argued for a constitutional ban on life-without-parole sentences for juveniles guilty of non-homicidal crimes.
Many will argue that these cases are about arbitrary line drawing — but this is a line that symbolizes the standards of decency in our society. The United States is the only country in the world that imposes sentences lifetime without parole on juveniles. That could change.
“Kids are different,” said Bryan Gowdy, counsel for one of the juvenile defendants, standing at the Supreme Court steps following his case. “Scientists say this, and we all know it from experience.”
The cases, Graham v. Florida and Sullivan v. Florida, involve teenagers who were 17 and 13 at the time of their offenses — two of the 111 youths nationwide given lifetime imprisonment without parole for crimes less than murder.
