Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/juvenile-life-sentences/)
Wine and tears poured and tissues were borrowed as several juvenile justice reform advocates were honored for their work to end life without parole for juvenile offenders.
More than four years after the Supreme Court ended mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, an Alabama judge has set a date for resentencing the teen killer whose name is on that landmark case.
Hundreds of other inmates have received new sentences since the justices handed down their ruling in Miller v. Alabama.
The judge could still send Miller back to prison for life without parole at the end of that proceeding.
In the nearly four years since the U.S. Supreme Court decided that juveniles can’t be subject to mandatory life-without-parole sentences, hundreds of juvenile offenders have been given a chance at eventual release.
Receiving a life sentence is a shock. When the judge said to me, in 1985, “I sentence you to life in prison as computed by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles,” I did not really comprehend his words. I was literally in shock. Afterwards, my attorney met with me briefly. He told me that since I had pleaded guilty and was still a teenager the parole board would probably let me out in seven years.