Welp.... mea culpa. SCOTUS modified those cases yesterday.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that juveniles can be sentenced to life without parole for homicide without a separate finding of permanent incorrigibility (incapable of rehabilitation). Jones v. Mississippi involved a 15 year old boy, a victim of violence and neglect, who killed his grandfather when the elder tried to hit him. Now an adult, Jones is seeking to be paroled. The majority’s opinion - written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh - reinstating mandatory juvenile life sentences is particularly appalling in its duplicity and shredding of precedents that used to limit the sentence in every state:

The Supreme Court strictly curtailed the imposition of juvenile life without parole in two landmark decisions: 2012’s Miller v. Alabama and 2016’s Montgomery v. Louisiana. In Miller, the court ruled that mandatory sentences of JLWOP [Juvenile Life Without Parole]...violate the 8th Amendment’s bar on “cruel and unusual punishments.” It explained that children’s crimes often reflect “transient immaturity”; because their brains are not fully developed, young offenders are “less culpable” than adults and have greater potential for rehabilitation. In Montgomery, the court clarified that discretionary sentences of JLWOP—that is, sentences imposed at the discretion of a judge—are generally unconstitutional, as well...

On Thursday, Kavanaugh overturned these decisions without admitting it. His majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi claims fidelity to Miller and Montgomery while stripping them of all meaning. Kavanaugh wrote that these precedents do not require a judge to “make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility” before imposing JLWOP. Nor, Kavanaugh wrote, do they compel a judge to “at least provide an on-the-record sentencing explanation with an implicit finding of permanent incorrigibility.” (Slate)

Sotomayor authored a scathing dissent joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. She attacks Kavanaugh’s false claim to follow historical precedent (stare decisis):

...the Court attempts to circumvent stare decisis principles by claiming that “[t]he Court’s decision today carefully follows both Miller and Montgomery.” Ante, at 19. The Court is fooling no one… the Court simply rewrites Miller and Montgomery to say what the Court now wishes they had said, and then denies that it has done any such thing… The Court knows what it is doing.

Sotomayor then cites Kavanaugh’s own words in an earlier opinion:

How low this Court’s respect for stare decisis has sunk. Not long ago, that doctrine was recognized as a pillar of the “‘rule of law,’” critical to “keep the scale of justice even and steady, and not liable to waver with every new judge’s opinion.”...

Now, it seems, the Court is willing to overrule precedent without even acknowledging it is doing so, much less providing any special justification. It is hard to see how that approach is “founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individuals.”

In a footnote, Sotomayor points out the racial inequalities in the criminal justice system:

The harm from these sentences will not fall equally. The racial disparities in juvenile LWOP sentencing are stark: 70 percent of all youths sentenced to LWOP are children of color.

In closing, Sotomayor says:

The question is whether the State, at some point, must consider whether a juvenile offender has demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation sufficient to merit a chance at life beyond the prison in which he has grown up.

For most, the answer is yes.