Arizona, Other States Need Resentencing Guidelines for JLWOP Youth
|
The current law of the land prohibits the use of mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for juvenile offenders due to Miller v. Alabama.
Sentenced to Life Without Parole As a Juvenile: April Henderson | Age 37
|
For more than a decade I have interviewed more than 1,000 kids in 35 states. What of these kids who were sentenced to long sentences and JLWOP, life sentences...
Sentenced to Life Without Parole As a Juvenile: Kimberly Williams | Age 35
|
For more than a decade I have interviewed more than 1,000 kids in 35 states. What of these kids who were sentenced to long sentences and JLWOP, life sentences...
Sentenced to Life Without Parole As a Juvenile: Terrence Graham | Age 30
|
For more than a decade I have interviewed more than 1,000 kids in 35 states. What of these kids who were sentenced to long sentences and JLWOP, life sentences...
Some State Laws Slow Resentencings Despite Miller v. Alabama Decision
|
While the man behind the landmark decision that ended mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles waits for a new sentence, other inmates given the same term are getting a shot at eventual freedom.
As Louisiana Considers Parole, the Story of One Lifer and Those He Touched
|
In 1993, Louis Gibson was arrested at age 17. He was sentenced to life without any chance of parole.
Today, Gibson, 41, is a model inmate, one of a select few living at the Louisiana State Police Inmate Barracks in Baton Rouge, where he does maintenance on state police aircraft.
Dying Inside: Teenage Murderer James Morgan Wasn’t Executed, But Is His Life Worth Living?
|
In 1987, when I first interviewed James Morgan, he was on death row in Florida, sentenced to die in the electric chair for murdering a widow in a small town north of Palm Beach. He killed her when he was 16 years old. Prosecutors argue that teens can never change. How anyone could predict the future that way was a mystery to the American Psychological Association, the American Bar Association, and others. For years I wondered how the death row teens had grown up. If Morgan could transform himself even in a small way, it could prove prosecutors wrong, I imagined. But I knew I couldn’t gauge his progress unless I could meet him decades in the future.
Plea Deal Frees Prisoner but Prolongs Battle Over JLWOP Retroactivity
|
George Toca, sentenced as a teen to life without parole in 1985 has been released from a Louisiana prison after Orleans Parish prosecutors allowed him to enter an Alford plea, leading to the vacation of his previous sentence. Toca’s case has been at the center of the ongoing legal battle to determine the retroactivity of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Miller vs. Alabama. According to SCOTUS Blog Toca’s case had been scheduled to be heard by the court this year and would have addressed retroactivity at least in Toca’s case. “Over the past year, the Court has several times turned down the same plea that it agreed to hear in Toca’s case.
How Prosecutors in Florida Gained Incredible Power Over the Fate of Juveniles
|
A recent law change gave state attorneys power to send children directly to adult court without that hearing and without a juvenile judge’s go-ahead.
OP-ED: Reflections on Miller v. Alabama: Roses, Thorns and Buds
|
While it was a promising opinion by the Court, it was not the decision many of us hoped would end, once and for all, life imprisonment for juvenile offenders.