Hundreds of juvenile offenders sentenced to life in prison without parole may get the chance to be resentenced as the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on whether its own 2012 decision must be applied retroactively.
The case involves George Toca, of Louisiana. He was convicted of accidentally shooting his best friend during an attempted armed robbery in 1984, when he was 17.
The court’s 2012 case was Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles.
Just two weeks before the court’s Friday agreement to hear Toca’s case, it had refused to hear an appeal of an Illinois Supreme Court ruling on retroactive application of Miller.