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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 10–9646 and 10–9647
_________________
EVAN MILLER, PETITIONER
10–9646
v.
ALABAMA
on writ of certiorari to the court of criminal
appeals of alabama
KUNTRELL JACKSON, PETITIONER
10–9647
v.
RAY HOBBS, DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
arkansas
[June 25, 2012]
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The two 14-year-old offenders in these cases
were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole. In neither case did the sentencing
authority have any discretion to impose a different punishment.
State law mandated that each juvenile die in prison even if a judge
or jury would have thought that his youth and its attendant
characteristics, along with the nature of his crime, made a lesser
sentence (for example, life
with the possibility of parole)
more appropriate. Such a scheme prevents those meting out
punishment from considering a juvenile’s “lessened
culpability” and greater “capacity for change,”
Graham v.
Florida, 560 U. S. ___, ___ (2010)
(slip op., at 17, 23), and runs afoul of our cases’
requirement of individualized sentencing for defendants facing the
most serious penalties. We therefore hold that mandatory life
without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their
crimes violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on
“cruel and unusual punishments.”
I
A
In November 1999, petitioner Kuntrell Jackson,
then 14 years old, and two other boys decided to rob a video store.
En route to the store, Jackson learned that one of the boys,
Derrick Shields, was carrying a sawed-off shotgun in his coat
sleeve. Jackson decided to stay outside when the two other boys
entered the store. Inside, Shields pointed the gun at the store
clerk, Laurie Troup, and demanded that she “give up the
money.”
Jackson v.
State, 359 Ark. 87, 89, 194
S.W.3d 757, 759 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted). Troup
refused. A few moments later, Jackson went into the store to find
Shields continuing to demand money. At trial, the parties disputed
whether Jackson warned Troup that “[w]e ain’t
playin’,” or instead told his friends, “I thought
you all was playin’.”
Id., at 91, 194 S. W.
3d, at 760 (internal quotation marks omitted). When Troup
threatened to call the police, Shields shot and killed her. The
three boys fled empty-handed. See
id., at 89–92, 194
S. W. 3d, at 758–760.
Arkansas law gives prosecutors discretion to
charge 14-year-olds as adults when they are alleged to have
committed certain serious offenses. See Ark. Code Ann.
§9–27–318(c)(2) (1998). The prosecutor here
exercised that authority by charging Jackson with capital felony
murder and aggravated robbery. Jackson moved to transfer the case
to juvenile court, but after considering the alleged facts of the
crime, a psychiatrist’s examination, and Jackson’s
juvenile arrest history (shoplifting and several incidents of car
theft), the trial court denied the motion, and an appellate court
affirmed. See
Jackson v.
State, No. 02–535,
2003 WL 193412, *1 (Ark. App., dateJan. 29, 2003);
§§9–27–318(d), (e). A jury later convicted
Jackson of both crimes. Noting that “in view of [the]
verdict, there’s only one possible punishment,” the
judge sentenced Jackson to life without parole. App. in No.
10–9647, p. 55 (hereinafter Jackson App.); see Ark. Code Ann.
§5–4–104(b) (1997) (“A defendant convicted
of capital murder or treason shall be sentenced to death or life
imprisonment without parole”).[
1] Jackson did not challenge the sentence on appeal, and
the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. See 359 Ark.
87, 194 S.W.3d 757.
Following
Roper v.
Simmons,
543 U.S.
551 (2005), in which this Court invalidated the death penalty
for all juvenile offenders under the age of 18, Jackson filed a
state petition for habeas corpus. He argued, based on
Roper’s reasoning, that a mandatory sentence of life
without parole for a 14-year-old also violates the Eighth
Amendment. The circuit court rejected that argument and granted the
State’s motion to dismiss. See Jackson App. 72–76.
While that ruling was on appeal, this Court held in
Graham
v.
Florida that life without parole violates the Eighth
Amendment when imposed on juvenile nonhomicide offenders. After the
parties filed briefs addressing that decision, the Arkansas Supreme
Court affirmed the dismissal of Jackson’s petition. See
Jackson v.
Norris, 2011 Ark. 49, ___ S. W. 3d
___. The majority found that
Roper and
Graham were
“narrowly tailored” to their contexts:
“death-penalty cases involving a juvenile and
life-imprisonment-without-parole cases for nonhomicide offenses
involving a juvenile.”
Id., at 5, ___ S. W. 3d,
at ___. Two justices dissented. They noted that Jackson was not the
shooter and that “any evidence of intent to kill was severely
lacking.”
Id., at 10, ___ S. W. 3d, at ___
(Danielson, J., dissenting). And they argued that Jackson’s
mandatory sentence ran afoul of
Graham’s admonition
that “ ‘[a]n offender’s age is relevant to
the Eighth Amendment, and criminal procedure laws that fail to take
defendants’ youthfulness into account at all would be
flawed.’ ”
Id., at 10–11, ___
S. W. 3d, at ___ (quoting
Graham, 560 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 25)).[
2]
B
Like Jackson, petitioner Evan Miller was 14
years old at the time of his crime. Miller had by then been in and
out of foster care because his mother suffered from alcoholism and
drug addiction and his stepfather abused him. Miller, too,
regularly used drugs and alcohol; and he had attempted suicide four
times, the first when he was six years old. See
E. J. M. v.
State, 928 So. 2d 1077,
1081
(Ala. Crim. App. 2004) (Cobb, J., concurring in result); App. in
No. 10–9646, pp. 26–28 (hereinafter Miller App.).
One night in 2003, Miller was at home with a
friend, Colby Smith, when a neighbor, Cole Cannon, came to make a
drug deal with Miller’s mother. See 6 Record in No.
10–9646, p. 1004. The two boys followed Cannon back to his
trailer, where all three smoked marijuana and played drinking
games. When Cannon passed out, Miller stole his wallet, splitting
about $300 with Smith. Miller then tried to put the wallet back in
Cannon’s pocket, but Cannon awoke and grabbed Miller by the
throat. Smith hit Cannon with a nearby baseball bat, and once
released, Miller grabbed the bat and repeatedly struck Cannon with
it. Miller placed a sheet over Cannon’s head, told him
“ ‘I am God, I’ve come to take your
life,’ ” and delivered one more blow.
Miller v.
State, 63 So. 3d 676, 689 (Ala. Crim. App.
2010). The boys then retreated to Miller’s trailer, but soon
decided to return to Cannon’s to cover up evidence of their
crime. Once there, they lit two fires. Cannon eventually died from
his injuries and smoke inhalation. See
id., at
683–685, 689.
Alabama law required that Miller initially be
charged as a juvenile, but allowed the District Attorney to seek
removal of the case to adult court. See Ala. Code
§12–15–34 (1977). The D. A. did so, and the
juvenile court agreed to the transfer after a hearing. Citing the
nature of the crime, Miller’s “mental maturity,”
and his prior juvenile offenses (truancy and “criminal
mischief”), the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed.
E. J. M. v.
State, No. CR–03–0915, pp.
5–7 (dateAug. 27, 2004) (unpublished memorandum).[
3] The State accordingly charged Miller
as an adult with murder in the course of arson. That crime (like
capital murder in Arkansas) carries a mandatory minimum punishment
of life without parole. See Ala. Code
§§13A–5–40(9), 13A–6–2(c)
(1982).
Relying in significant part on testimony from
Smith, who had pleaded to a lesser offense, a jury found Miller
guilty. He was therefore sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, ruling
that life without parole was “not overly harsh when compared
to the crime” and that the mandatory nature of the sentencing
scheme was permissible under the Eighth Amendment. 63 So. 3d, at
690; see
id., at 686–691. The Alabama Supreme Court
denied review.
We granted certiorari in both cases, see 565
U. S. ___ (2011) (No. 10–9646); 565 U. S. ___
(2011) (No. 10–9647), and now reverse.
II
The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of
cruel and un- usual punishment “guarantees individuals the
right not to be subjected to excessive sanctions.”
Roper, 543 U. S., at 560. That right, we have
explained, “flows from the basic ‘precept of justice
that punishment for crime should be graduated and
proportioned’ ” to both the offender and the
offense.
Ibid. (quoting
Weems v.
United
States,
217 U.S.
349, 367 (1910)). As we noted the last time we consid- ered
life-without-parole sentences imposed on juveniles, “[t]he
concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth
Amendment.”
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 8). And we view that concept less through a historical prism
than according to “ ‘the evolving standards of
decency that mark the progress of a maturing
society.’ ”
Estelle v.
Gamble,
429 U.S.
97, 102 (1976) (quoting
Trop v.
Dulles,
356 U.S.
86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion)).
The cases before us implicate two strands of
precedent reflecting our concern with proportionate punishment. The
first has adopted categorical bans on sentencing practices based on
mismatches between the culpability of a class of offenders and the
severity of a penalty. See
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 9–10) (listing cases). So, for example, we have
held that imposing the death penalty for nonhomicide crimes against
individuals, or imposing it on mentally retarded defendants,
violates the Eighth Amendment. See
Kennedy v.
Louisiana,
554 U.S.
407 (2008);
Atkins v.
Virginia,
536 U.S.
304 (2002). Several of the cases in this group have specially
focused on juvenile offenders, because of their lesser culpability.
Thus,
Roper held that the Eighth Amendment bars capital
punishment for children, and
Graham concluded that the
Amendment also prohibits a sentence of life without the possibility
of parole for a child who committed a nonhomicide offense.
Graham further likened life without parole for juveniles to
the death penalty itself, thereby evoking a second line of our
precedents. In those cases, we have prohibited mandatory imposition
of capital punishment, requiring that sentencing authorities
consider the characteristics of a defendant and the details of his
offense before sentencing him to death. See
Woodson v.
North Carolina,
428 U.S.
280 (1976) (plurality opinion);
Lockett v.
Ohio,
438 U.S.
586 (1978). Here, the confluence of these two lines of
precedent leads to the conclusion that mandatory
life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth
Amendment.[
4]
To start with the first set of cases:
Roper and
Graham establish that children are
constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.
Because juveniles have diminished culpability and greater prospects
for reform, we explained, “they are less deserving of the
most severe punishments.”
Graham, 560 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 17). Those cases relied on three significant gaps
between juveniles and adults. First, children have a
“ ‘lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of
responsibility,’ ” leading to recklessness,
impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking.
Roper, 543
U. S., at 569. Second, children “are more vulner- able
. . . to negative influences and outside
pressures,” including from their family and peers; they have
limited “contro[l] over their own environment” and lack
the ability to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing
settings.
Ibid. And third, a child’s character is not
as “well formed” as an adult’s; his traits are
“less fixed” and his actions less likely to be
“evidence of irretrievabl[e] deprav[ity].”
Id.,
at 570.
Our decisions rested not only on common
sense—on what “any parent knows”—but on
science and social science as well.
Id., at 569. In
Roper, we cited studies showing that
“ ‘[o]nly a relatively small proportion of
adolescents’ ” who engage in illegal activity
“ ‘develop entrenched patterns of problem
behavior.’ ”
Id., at 570 (quoting Steinberg
& Scott, Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence: Developmental
Immaturity, Diminished Responsibility, and the Juvenile Death
Penalty, 58 Am. Psychologist 1009, 1014 (2003)). And in
Graham, we noted that “developments in psychology and
brain science continue to show fundamental differences between
juvenile and adult minds”—for example, in “parts
of the brain involved in behavior control.” 560 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 17).[
5] We
reasoned that those findings—of transient rashness,
proclivity for risk, and inability to assess
consequences—both lessened a child’s “moral
culpability” and enhanced the prospect that, as the years go
by and neurological development occurs, his
“ ‘deficiencies will be
reformed.’ ”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 18)
(quoting
Roper, 543 U. S., at 570).
Roper and
Graham emphasized that
the distinctive at- tributes of youth diminish the penological
justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile
offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes. Because
“ ‘[t]he heart of the retribution
rationale’ ” relates to an offender’s
blameworthiness, “ ‘the case for retribution is
not as strong with a minor as with an adult.’ ”
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20–21)
(quoting
Tison v.
Arizona,
481
U.S. 137, 149 (1987);
Roper, 543 U. S., at 571).
Nor can deterrence do the work in this context, because
“ ‘the same characteristics that render juveniles
less culpable than adults’ ”—their
immaturity, recklessness, and impetuosity—make them less
likely to consider potential punishment.
Graham, 560
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 21) (quoting
Roper, 543
U. S., at 571). Similarly, incapacitation could not support
the life-without-parole sentence in
Graham: Deciding that a
“juvenile offender forever will be a danger to society”
would require “mak[ing] a judgment that [he] is
incorrigible”—but “ ‘incorrigibility
is inconsistent with youth.’ ” 560 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 22) (quoting
Workman v.
Commonwealth,
429 S.W.2d 374, 378 (Ky. App. 1968)). And for the same reason,
rehabilitation could not justify that sentence. Life without parole
“forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal.”
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 23). It
reflects “an irrevocable judgment about [an offender’s]
value and place in society,” at odds with a child’s
capacity for change.
Ibid.
Graham concluded from this analysis that
life-without-parole sentences, like capital punishment, may violate
the Eighth Amendment when imposed on children. To be sure,
Graham’s flat ban on life without parole applied only
to nonhomicide crimes, and the Court took care to distinguish those
offenses from murder, based on both moral culpability and
consequential harm. See
id., at ___ (slip op., at 18). But
none of what it said about children—about their distinctive
(and transitory) mental traits and en- vironmental
vulnerabilities—is crime-specific. Those features are evident
in the same way, and to the same de- gree, when (as in both cases
here) a botched robbery turns into a killing. So
Graham’s reasoning implicates any life-without-parole
sentence imposed on a juvenile, even as its categorical bar relates
only to nonhomicide offenses.
Most fundamentally,
Graham insists that
youth matters in determining the appropriateness of a lifetime of
incarceration without the possibility of parole. In the
circumstances there, juvenile status precluded a
life-without-parole sentence, even though an adult could receive it
for a similar crime. And in other contexts as well, the
characteristics of youth, and the way they weaken rationales for
punishment, can render a life-without-parole sentence
disproportionate. Cf.
id., at ___ (slip op., at 20–23)
(generally doubting the penological justifications for imposing
life without parole on juveniles). “An offender’s
age,” we made clear in
Graham, “is relevant to
the Eighth Amendment,” and so “criminal procedure laws
that fail to take defendants’ youthfulness into account at
all would be flawed.”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at
25)
. The Chief Justice, concurring in the judgment, made a
similar point. Al- though rejecting a categorical bar on
life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, he acknowledged
“
Roper’s conclusion that juveniles are typically
less culpable than adults,” and accordingly wrote that
“an offender’s juvenile status can play a central
role” in considering a sentence’s proportionality.
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 5–6); see
id., at ___
(slip op., at 12) (Graham’s “youth is one factor, among
others, that should be considered in deciding whether his
punishment was unconstitutionally excessive”).[
6]
But the mandatory penalty schemes at issue here
prevent the sentencer from taking account of these central
considerations. By removing youth from the balance— by
subjecting a juvenile to the same life-without-parole sentence
applicable to an adult—these laws prohibit a sentencing
authority from assessing whether the law’s harshest term of
imprisonment proportionately punishes a juvenile offender. That
contravenes
Graham’s (and also
Roper’s)
foundational principle: that imposition of a State’s most
severe penalties on juvenile offenders cannot proceed as though
they were not children.
And
Graham makes plain these mandatory
schemes’ defects in another way: by likening
life-without-parole sentences imposed on juveniles to the death
penalty itself. Life-without-parole terms, the Court wrote,
“share some characteristics with death sentences that are
shared by no other sentences.” 560 U. S.
, at ___
(slip op., at 19). Imprisoning an offender until he dies alters the
remainder of his life “by a forfeiture that is
irrevocable.”
Ibid. (citing
Solem v.
Helm,
463 U.S.
277, 300–301 (1983)). And this lengthiest possible
incarceration is an “especially harsh punishment for a
juvenile,” because he will almost inevitably serve
“more years and a greater percentage of his life in prison
than an adult offender.”
Graham, 560 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 19–20). The penalty when imposed on a
teenager, as compared with an older person, is therefore “the
same . . . in name only.”
Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 20). All of that suggested a distinctive set of legal
rules: In part because we viewed this ultimate penalty for
juveniles as akin to the death penalty, we treated it similarly to
that most severe punishment. We imposed a categorical ban on the
sentence’s use, in a way unprecedented for a term of
imprisonment. See
id., at ___ (slip op., at 9);
id.,
at ___ (Thomas, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 7) (“For the
first time in its history, the Court declares an entire class of
offenders immune from a noncapital sentence using the categorical
approach it previously reserved for death penalty cases
alone”). And the bar we adopted mirrored a proscription first
established in the death penalty context—that the punishment
cannot be imposed for any nonhomicide crimes against individuals.
See
Kennedy,
554 U.S.
407;
Coker v.
Georgia,
433
U.S. 584 (1977).
That correspondence—
Graham’s
“[t]reat[ment] [of] juvenile life sentences as analogous to
capital punishment,” 560 U. S., at ___ (Roberts,
C. J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 5)—makes
relevant here a second line of our precedents, demanding
individualized sentencing when imposing the death penalty. In
Woodson,
428 U.S.
280, we held that a statute mandating a death sentence for
first-degree murder violated the Eighth Amendment. We thought the
mandatory scheme flawed because it gave no significance to
“the character and record of the individual offender or the
circumstances” of the offense, and “exclud[ed] from
consideration . . . the possibility of compassionate or
mitigating factors.”
Id., at 304. Subsequent decisions
have elaborated on the requirement that capital defendants have an
opportunity to advance, and the judge or jury a chance to assess,
any mitigating factors, so that the death penalty is reserved only
for the most culpable defendants committing the most serious
offenses. See,
e.g., Sumner v.
Shuman,
483 U.S.
66, 74–76 (1987);
Eddings v.
Oklahoma,
455 U.S.
104, 110–112 (1982);
Lockett, 438 U. S., at
597–609 (plurality opinion).
Of special pertinence here, we insisted in these
rulings that a sentencer have the ability to consider the
“mitigating qualities of youth.”
Johnson v.
Texas,
509 U.S.
350, 367 (1993). Everything we said in
Roper and
Graham about that stage of life also appears in these
decisions. As we observed, “youth is more than a
chronological fact.”
Eddings, 455 U. S., at 115.
It is a time of immaturity, ir- responsibility,
“impetuousness[,] and recklessness.”
Johnson,
509 U. S., at 368. It is a moment and “condition of life
when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to
psychological damage.”
Eddings, 455 U. S., at
115. And its “signature qualities” are all
“transient.”
Johnson, 509 U. S., at 368.
Eddings is especially on point. There, a 16-year-old shot a
police officer point-blank and killed him. We invalidated his death
sentence because the judge did not consider evidence of his
neglectful and violent family background (including his
mother’s drug abuse and his father’s physical abuse)
and his emotional disturbance. We found that evidence
“particularly relevant”—more so than it would
have been in the case of an adult offender. 455 U. S., at 115.
We held: “[J]ust as the chronological age of a minor is
itself a relevant mitigating factor of great weight, so must the
background and mental and emotional development of a youthful
defendant be duly considered” in assessing his culpability.
Id., at 116.
In light of
Graham’s reasoning,
these decisions too show the flaws of imposing mandatory
life-without-parole sentences on juvenile homicide offenders. Such
mandatory penalties, by their nature, preclude a sentencer from
taking account of an offender’s age and the wealth of
characteristics and circumstances attendant to it. Under these
schemes, every juvenile will receive the same sentence as every
other—the 17-year-old and the 14-year-old, the shooter and
the accomplice, the child from a stable household and the child
from a chaotic and abusive one. And still worse, each juvenile
(including these two 14-year-olds) will receive the same sentence
as the vast majority of adults committing similar homicide
offenses—but really, as
Graham noted, a
greater
sentence than those adults will serve.[
7] In meting out the death penalty, the elision of all
these differences would be strictly forbidden. And once again,
Graham indicates that a similar rule should apply when a
juvenile confronts a sentence of life (and death) in prison.
So
Graham and
Roper and our
individualized sentencing cases alike teach that in imposing a
State’s harshest penalties, a sentencer misses too much if he
treats every child as an adult. To recap: Mandatory life without
parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological
age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity,
impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences. It
prevents taking into account the family and home environment that
surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate
himself—no matter how bru- tal or dysfunctional. It neglects
the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of
his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer
pressures may have affected him. Indeed, it ignores that he might
have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for
incompetencies associated with youth—for example, his
inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on
a plea agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys.
See,
e.g., Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 27)
(“[T]he features that distinguish juveniles from adults also
put them at a significant disadvantage in criminal
proceedings”);
J. D. B. v.
North Carolina, 564
U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 5–6) (discussing
children’s responses to interrogation). And finally, this
mandatory punishment disregards the possibility of rehabilitation
even when the circumstances most suggest it.
Both cases before us illustrate the problem.
Take Jackson’s first. As noted earlier, Jackson did not fire
the bullet that killed Laurie Troup; nor did the State argue that
he intended her death. Jackson’s conviction was instead based
on an aiding-and-abetting theory; and the appellate court affirmed
the verdict only because the jury could have believed that when
Jackson entered the store, he warned Troup that “[w]e
ain’t playin’,” rather than told his friends that
“I thought you all was playin’.” See 359 Ark., at
90–92, 194 S. W. 3d, at 759–760;
supra, at
2. To be sure, Jackson learned on the way to the video store that
his friend Shields was carrying a gun, but his age could well have
affected his calculation of the risk that posed, as well as his
willingness to walk away at that point. All these circumstances go
to Jackson’s culpability for the offense. See
Graham,
560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 18) (“[W]hen compared to
an adult murderer, a juvenile offender who did not kill or intend
to kill has a twice diminished moral culpability”). And so
too does Jackson’s family background and immersion in
violence: Both his mother and his grandmother had previously shot
other individuals. See Record in No. 10–9647, pp.
80–82. At the least, a sentencer should look at such facts
before depriving a 14-year-old of any prospect of release from
prison.
That is true also in Miller’s case. No one
can doubt that he and Smith committed a vicious murder. But they
did it when high on drugs and alcohol consumed with the adult
victim. And if ever a pathological background might have
contributed to a 14-year-old’s commission of a crime, it is
here. Miller’s stepfather physically abused him; his
alcoholic and drug-addicted mother neglected him; he had been in
and out of foster care as a result; and he had tried to kill
himself four times, the first when he should have been in
kindergarten. See 928 So. 2d, at 1081 (Cobb, J., concurring in
result); Miller App. 26–28;
supra, at 4. Nonetheless,
Miller’s past criminal history was limited—two
instances of truancy and one of “second-degree criminal
mischief.” No. CR–03–0915, at 6 (unpublished
memorandum). That Miller deserved severe punishment for killing
Cole Cannon is beyond question. But once again, a sentencer needed
to examine all these circumstances before concluding that life
without any possibility of parole was the appropriate penalty.
We therefore hold that the Eighth Amendment
forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without
possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. Cf.
Graham,
560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24) (“A State is not
required to guarantee eventual freedom,” but must provide
“some meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on
demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation”). By making youth
(and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that
harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of
disproportionate punishment. Because that holding is sufficient to
decide these cases, we do not consider Jackson’s and
Miller’s alternative argument that the Eighth Amendment
requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles, or
at least for those 14 and younger. But given all we have said in
Roper,
Graham, and this decision about
children’s diminished culpability and heightened capacity for
change, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to
this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon. That is especially
so because of the great difficulty we noted in
Roper and
Graham of distinguishing at this early age between
“the juvenile of- fender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet
transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime
reflects irreparable corruption.”
Roper, 543
U. S., at 573;
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 17). Although we do not foreclose a sentencer’s
ability to make that judgment in homicide cases, we require it to
take into account how children are different, and how those
differences coun- sel against irrevocably sentencing them to a
lifetime in prison.[
8]
III
Alabama and Arkansas offer two kinds of
arguments against requiring individualized consideration before
sen- tencing a juvenile to life imprisonment without possi- bility
of parole. The States (along with the dissents) first contend that
the rule we adopt conflicts with aspects of our Eighth Amendment
caselaw. And they next assert that the rule is unnecessary because
individualized circumstances come into play in deciding whether to
try a juvenile offender as an adult. We think the States are wrong
on both counts.
A
The States (along with Justice Thomas) first
claim that
Harmelin v.
Michigan,
501 U.S.
957 (1991), precludes our holding. The defendant in
Harmelin was sentenced to a mandatory life-without-parole
term for possessing more than 650 grams of cocaine. The Court
upheld that pen- alty, reasoning that “a sentence which is
not otherwise cruel and unusual” does not “becom[e] so
simply because it is ‘mandatory.’ ”
Id., at 995. We recognized that a different rule, requiring
individualized sentencing, applied in the death penalty context.
But we refused to extend that command to noncapital cases
“because of the qualitative difference between death and all
other penalties.”
Ibid.; see
id., at 1006
(Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
According to Alabama, invalidating the mandatory imposition of
life-without-parole terms on juveniles “would effectively
overrule
Harmelin.” Brief for Respondent in No.
10–9646, p. 59 (hereinafter Alabama Brief); see Arkansas
Brief 39.
We think that argument myopic.
Harmelin
had nothing to do with children and did not purport to apply its
holding to the sentencing of juvenile offenders. We have by now
held on multiple occasions that a sentencing rule permissible for
adults may not be so for children. Capital punishment, our
decisions hold, generally comports with the Eighth
Amendment—except it cannot be imposed on children. See
Roper,
543 U.S.
551;
Thompson,
487
U.S. 815. So too, life without parole is permissible for
nonhomicide offenses—except, once again, for children. See
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24). Nor are
these sentencing decisions an oddity in the law. To the contrary,
“ ‘[o]ur history is replete with laws and judicial
recogni- tion’ that children cannot be viewed simply as
miniature adults.”
J. D. B., 564 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 10–11) (quoting
Eddings, 455 U. S.,
at 115–116, citing examples from criminal, property,
contract, and tort law). So if (as
Harmelin recognized)
“death is different,” children are different too.
Indeed, it is the odd legal rule that does
not have some
form of exception for children. In that context, it is no surprise
that the law relating to society’s harshest punishments
recognizes such a distinction. Cf.
Graham, 560 U. S.,
at ___ (Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at
7) (“Graham’s age places him in a significantly
different category from the defendan[t] in . . .
Harmelin”). Our ruling thus neither overrules nor
undermines nor con- flicts with
Harmelin.
Alabama and Arkansas (along with The Chief Jus-
tice and Justice Alito) next contend that because many States
impose mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles, we may
not hold the practice unconstitutional. In considering categorical
bars to the death penalty and life without parole, we ask as part
of the analysis whether “ ‘objective indicia of
society’s standards, as expressed in legislative enactments
and state practice,’ ” show a “national
consensus” against a sentence for a particular class of
offenders.
Graham, 560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 10)
(quoting
Roper, 543 U. S., at 563). By our count, 29
jurisdictions (28 States and the Federal Government) make a
life-without-parole term mandatory for some juveniles convicted of
murder in adult court.[
9] The
States argue that this number precludes our holding.
We do not agree; indeed, we think the
States’ argument on this score
weaker than the one we
rejected in
Graham. For starters, the cases here are
different from the typical one in which we have tallied legislative
enactments. Our decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a
class of offenders or type of crime—as, for example, we did
in
Roper or
Graham. Instead, it mandates only that a
sentencer follow a certain process—considering an
offender’s youth and attendant characteristics—before
imposing a particular penalty. And in so requiring, our decision
flows straightforwardly from our precedents: specifically, the
principle of
Roper, Graham, and our individualized
sentencing cases that youth matters for purposes of meting out the
law’s most serious punishments. When both of those
circumstances have obtained in the past, we have not scrutinized or
relied in the same way on legislative enactments. See,
e.g.,
Sumner v.
Shuman,
483 U.S.
66 (relying on
Woodson’s logic to prohibit the
mandatory death penalty for murderers already serving life without
parole);
Lockett, 438 U. S., at 602–608
(plurality opinion) (applying
Woodson to require that judges
and juries consider all mitigating evidence);
Eddings, 455
U. S., at 110–117 (similar). We see no difference
here.
In any event, the “objective
indicia” that the States offer do not distinguish these cases
from others holding that a sentencing practice violates the Eighth
Amendment. In
Graham, we prohibited life-without-parole
terms for juveniles committing nonhomicide offenses even though 39
jurisdictions permitted that sentence. See 560 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 11). That is 10
more than impose life without
parole on juveniles on a mandatory basis.[
10] And in
Atkins,
Roper, and
Thompson, we similarly banned the death penalty in
circumstances in which “less than half” of the
“States that permit[ted] capital punishment (for whom the
issue exist[ed])” had previously chosen to do so.
Atkins, 536 U. S., at 342 (Scalia, J., dissenting)
(emphasis deleted); see
id., at 313–315 (majority
opinion);
Roper, 543 U. S., at 564–565;
Thompson, 487 U. S., at 826–827 (plurality
opinion). So we are breaking no new ground in these cases.[
11]
Graham and
Thompson provide
special guidance, because they considered the same kind of statutes
we do and explained why simply counting them would present a
distorted view. Most jurisdictions authorized the death penalty or
life without parole for juveniles only through the combination of
two independent statutory provisions. One allowed the transfer of
certain juvenile offenders to adult court, while another (often in
a far-removed part of the code) set out the penalties for any and
all individuals tried there. We reasoned that in those
circumstances, it was impossible to say whether a legislature had
endorsed a given penalty for children (or would do so if presented
with the choice). In
Thompson, we found that the statutes
“t[old] us that the States consider 15-year-olds to be old
enough to be tried in criminal court for serious crimes (or too old
to be dealt with effectively in juvenile court), but t[old] us
nothing about the judgment these States have made regarding the
appropriate punishment for such youthful offenders.” 487
U. S., at 826, n. 24 (plurality opinion) (emphasis deleted);
see also
id., at 850 (O’Connor, J., concurring in
judgment);
Roper, 543 U. S., at 596, n.
(O’Connor, J., dissenting). And
Graham echoed that
reasoning: Although the confluence of state laws “ma[de] life
without parole possible for some juvenile nonhomicide
offenders,” it did not “justify a judgment” that
many States actually “intended to subject such
offenders” to those sentences. 560 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 16).[
12]
All that is just as true here. Almost all
jurisdictions allow some juveniles to be tried in adult court for
some kinds of homicide. See Dept. of Justice, H. Snyder & M.
Sickmund, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report
110–114 (hereinafter 2006 National Report). But most States
do not have separate penalty provisions for those juvenile
offenders. Of the 29 jurisdictions mandating life without parole
for children, more than half do so by virtue of generally
applicable penalty provisions, imposing the sentence without regard
to age.[
13] And indeed, some
of those States set no minimum age for who may be transferred to
adult court in the first instance, thus applying
life-without-parole mandates to children of any age—be it 17
or 14 or 10 or 6.[
14] As in
Graham, we think that “underscores that the statutory
eligibility of a juvenile offender for life without parole does not
indicate that the penalty has been endorsed through deliberate,
express, and full legislative consideration.” 560 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 16). That Alabama and Arkansas can count to 29
by including these possibly (or probably) inadvertent legislative
outcomes does not preclude our determination that mandatory life
without parole for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment.
B
Nor does the presence of discretion in some
jurisdictions’ transfer statutes aid the States here. Alabama
and Arkansas initially ignore that many States use mandatory
transfer systems: A juvenile of a certain age who has committed a
specified offense will be tried in adult court, regardless of any
individualized circumstances. Of the 29 relevant jurisdictions,
about half place at least some juvenile homicide offenders in adult
court automatically, with no apparent opportunity to seek transfer
to juvenile court.[
15]
Moreover, several States at times lodge this decision exclusively
in the hands of prosecutors, again with no statutory mechanism for
judicial reevaluation.[
16]
And those “prosecutorial discretion laws are usually silent
regarding standards, protocols, or appropriate considerations for
decisionmaking.” Dept. of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, P. Griffin, S. Addie, B. Adams, &
K. Firestine, Trying Juveniles as Adults: An Analysis of State
Transfer Laws and Reporting 5 (2011).
Even when States give transfer-stage discretion
to judges, it has limited utility. First, the decisionmaker
typically will have only partial information at this early,
pretrial stage about either the child or the circumstances of his
offense. Miller’s case provides an example. As noted earlier,
see n. 3,
supra, the juvenile court denied
Miller’s request for his own mental-health expert at the
transfer hearing, and the appeals court affirmed on the ground that
Miller was not then entitled to the protections and services he
would receive at trial. See No. CR–03–0915, at
3–4 (unpublished memorandum). But by then, of course, the
expert’s testimony could not change the sentence; whatever
she said in mitigation, the mandatory life-without-parole prison
term would kick in. The key mo- ment for the exercise of discretion
is the transfer—and as Miller’s case shows, the judge
often does not know then what she will learn, about the offender or
the offense, over the course of the proceedings.
Second and still more important, the question at
transfer hearings may differ dramatically from the issue at a
post-trial sentencing. Because many juvenile systems require that
the offender be released at a particular age or after a certain
number of years, transfer decisions often present a choice between
extremes: light punishment as a child or standard sentencing as an
adult (here, life without parole). In many States, for example, a
child convicted in juvenile court must be released from custody by
the age of 21. See,
e.g., Ala. Code
§12–15–117(a) (Cum. Supp. 2011); see generally
2006 National Report 103 (noting limitations on the length of
juvenile court sanctions). Discretionary sentencing in adult court
would provide different options: There, a judge or jury could
choose, rather than a life-without-parole sentence, a lifetime
prison term
with the possibility of parole or a lengthy term
of years. It is easy to imagine a judge deciding that a minor
deserves a (much) harsher sentence than he would receive in
juvenile court, while still not thinking life-without-parole
appropriate. For that reason, the discretion available to a judge
at the transfer stage cannot substitute for discretion at
post-trial sentencing in adult court—and so cannot satisfy
the Eighth Amendment.
IV
Graham,
Roper, and our
individualized sentencing decisions make clear that a judge or jury
must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances
before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles. By
requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime
incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their
age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes,
the mandatory sentencing schemes before us violate this principle
of proportionality, and so the Eighth Amendment’s ban on
cruel and unusual punishment. We accordingly reverse the judgments
of the Arkansas Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
and remand the cases for further proceedings not inconsistent with
this opinion.
It is so ordered.