NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 14–280
_________________
HENRY MONTGOMERY, PETITIONER
v.
LOUISIANA
on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
louisiana
[January 25, 2016]
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the
Court.
This is another case in a series of decisions
involving the sentencing of offenders who were juveniles when their
crimes were committed. In
Miller v.
Alabama, 567
U. S. ___ (2012), the Court held that a juvenile convicted of
a homicide offense could not be sentenced to life in prison without
parole absent consideration of the juvenile’s special circumstances
in light of the principles and purposes of juvenile sentencing. In
the wake of
Miller, the question has arisen whether its
holding is retroactive to juvenile offenders whose convictions and
sentences were final when
Miller was decided. Courts have
reached different conclusions on this point. Compare,
e.g.,
Martin v.
Symmes, 782 F. 3d 939, 943 (CA8 2015);
Johnson v.
Ponton, 780 F. 3d 219, 224–226 (CA4
2015);
Chambers v.
State, 831 N. W. 2d 311, 331
(Minn. 2013); and
State v.
Tate, 2012–2763,
p. 17 (La. 11/5/13), 130 So. 3d 829, 841, with
Diatchenko v.
District Attorney for Suffolk Dist.,
466 Mass. 655, 661–667, 1 N. E. 3d 270, 278–282 (2013);
Aiken v.
Byars, 410 S. C. 534, 548, 765
S. E. 2d 572, 578 (2014);
State v.
Mares, 2014
WY 126, ¶¶47–63, 335 P. 3d 487, 504–508; and
People v.
Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶41, 6 N. E. 3d 709, 722.
Certiorari was granted in this case to resolve the question.
I
Petitioner is Henry Montgomery. In 1963,
Montgomery killed Charles Hurt, a deputy sheriff in East Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. Montgomery was 17 years old at the time of the
crime. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but the
Louisiana Supreme Court reversed his conviction after finding that
public prejudice had pre-vented a fair trial.
State v.
Montgomery, 181 So. 2d 756, 762 (La. 1966).
Montgomery was retried. The jury returned a
verdict of “guilty without capital punishment.”
State v.
Montgomery, 242 So. 2d 818 (La. 1970). Under Louisiana
law, this verdict required the trial court to impose a sentence of
life without parole. The sentence was automatic upon the jury’s
verdict, so Montgomery had no opportunity to present mitigation
evidence to justify a less severe sentence. That evidence might
have included Montgomery’s young age at the time of the crime;
expert testimony regarding his limited capacity for foresight,
self-discipline, and judgment; and his potential for
rehabilitation. Montgomery, now 69 years old, has spent almost his
entire life in prison.
Almost 50 years after Montgomery was first taken
into custody, this Court decided
Miller v.
Alabama,
567 U. S. ___.
Miller held that mandatory life without
parole for juvenile homicide offenders violates the Eighth
Amendment’s prohibition on “ ‘cruel and unusual
punishments.’ ”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 2). “By
making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition
of that harshest prison sentence,” mandatory life without parole
“poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17).
Miller required that
sentencing courts consider a child’s “diminished culpability and
heightened capacity for change” before condemning him or her to die
in prison.
Ibid. Although
Miller did not foreclose a
sentencer’s ability to impose life without parole on a juvenile,
the Court explained that a lifetime in prison is a disproportionate
sentence for all but the rarest of children, those whose crimes
reflect “ ‘irreparable corruption.’ ”
Ibid.
(quoting
Roper v.
Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 573
(2005) ).
After this Court issued its decision in
Miller, Montgomery sought collateral review of his mandatory
life-without-parole sentence. In Louisiana there are two principal
mechanisms for collateral challenge to the lawfulness of
imprisonment. Each begins with a filing in the trial court where
the prisoner was convicted and sentenced. La. Code Crim. Proc.
Ann., Arts. 882, 926 (West 2008). The first procedure permits a
prisoner to file an application for postconviction relief on one or
more of seven grounds set forth in the statute. Art. 930.3. The
Louisiana Supreme Court has held that none of those grounds
provides a basis for collateral review of sentencing errors. See
State ex rel. Melinie v.
State, 93–1380 (La.
1/12/96), 665 So. 2d 1172 (
per curiam). Sentencing
errors must instead be raised through Louisiana’s second collateral
review procedure.
This second mechanism allows a prisoner to bring
a collateral attack on his or her sentence by filing a motion to
correct an illegal sentence. See Art. 882. Montgomery invoked this
procedure in the East Baton Rouge Parish District Court.
The state statute provides that “[a]n illegal
sentence may be corrected at any time by the court that imposed the
sentence.”
Ibid. An illegal sentence “is primarily
restricted to those instances in which the
term of the
prisoner’s sentence is not authorized by the statute or statutes
which govern the penalty” for the crime of conviction.
State
v.
Mead, 2014–1051, p. 3 (La. App. 4 Cir. 4/22/15), 165
So. 3d 1044, 1047; see also
State v.
Alexander,
2014–0401 (La. 11/7/14), 152 So. 3d 137 (
per curiam). In the
ordinary course Louisiana courts will not consider a challenge to a
disproportionate sentence on collateral review; rather, as a
general matter, it appears that prisoners must raise Eighth
Amendment sentencing chal-lenges on direct review. See
State
v.
Gibbs, 620 So. 2d 296, 296–297 (La. App. 1993);
Mead, 165 So. 3d, at 1047.
Louisiana’s collateral review courts will,
however, consider a motion to correct an illegal sentence based on
a decision of this Court holding that the Eighth Amendment to the
Federal Constitution prohibits a punishment for a type of crime or
a class of offenders. When, for example, this Court held in
Graham v.
Florida, 560 U. S. 48 (2010) , that
the Eighth Amendment bars life-without-parole sentences for
juvenile nonhomicide offenders, Louisiana courts heard
Graham claims brought by prisoners whose sentences had long
been final. See
, e.g.,
State v.
Shaffer, 2011–1756, pp. 1–4 (La. 11/23/11), 77 So. 3d 939,
940–942 (
per curiam) (considering motion to correct an
illegal sentence on the ground that
Graham rendered illegal
a life-without-parole sentence for a juvenile nonhomicide
offender). Montgomery’s motion argued that
Miller rendered
his mandatory life-without-parole sentence illegal.
The trial court denied Montgomery’s motion on
the ground that
Miller is not retroactive on collateral
review. Montgomery then filed an application for a supervisory
writ. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied the application. 2013–1163
(6/20/14), 141 So. 3d 264. The court relied on its earlier decision
in
State v.
Tate, 2012–2763, 130 So. 3d 829, which
held that
Miller does not have retroactive effect in cases
on state collateral review. Chief Justice Johnson and Justice
Hughes dissented in
Tate, and Chief Justice Johnson again
noted his dissent in Montgomery’s case.
This Court granted Montgomery’s petition for
certiorari. The petition presented the question “whether
Miller adopts a new substantive rule that applies
retroactively on collateral review to people condemned as juveniles
to die in prison.” Pet. for Cert. i. In addition, the Court
directed the parties to address the following question: “Do we have
jurisdiction to decide whether the Supreme Court of Louisiana
correctly refused to give retroactive effect in this case to our
decision in
Miller?” 575 U. S. ___ (2015).
II
The parties agree that the Court has
jurisdiction to decide this case. To ensure this conclusion is
correct, the Court appointed Richard D. Bernstein as
amicus
curiae to brief and argue the position that the Court lacks
jurisdiction. He has ably discharged his assigned
responsibilities.
Amicus argues that a State is under no
obligation to give a new rule of constitutional law retroactive
effect in its own collateral review proceedings. As those
proceedings are created by state law and under the State’s plenary
control,
amicus contends, it is for state courts to define
applicable principles of retroactivity. Under this view, the
Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision does not implicate a federal
right; it only determines the scope of relief avail-able in a
particular type of state proceeding—a question of state law beyond
this Court’s power to review.
If, however, the Constitution establishes a rule
and requires that the rule have retroactive application, then a
state court’s refusal to give the rule retroactive effect is
reviewable by this Court. Cf.
Griffith v.
Kentucky,
479 U. S. 314, 328 (1987) (holding that on direct review, a
new constitutional rule must be applied retroactively “to all
cases, state or federal”). States may not disregard a controlling,
constitutional command in their own courts. See
Martin v.
Hunter’s Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 340–341, 344 (1816); see also
Yates v.
Aiken, 484 U. S. 211, 218 (1988) (when
a State has not “placed any limit on the issues that it will
entertain in collateral proceedings . . . it has a duty
to grant the relief that federal law requires”).
Amicus’
argument therefore hinges on the premise that this Court’s
retroactivity precedents are not a constitutional mandate.
Justice O’Connor’s plurality opinion in
Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989) , set forth
a framework for retroactiv-ity in cases on federal collateral
review. Under
Teague, a new constitutional rule of criminal
procedure does not apply, as a general matter, to convictions that
were final when the new rule was announced.
Teague
recognized, however, two categories of rules that are not subject
to its general retroactivity bar. First, courts must give
retroactive effect to new substantive rules of constitutional law.
Substantive rules include “rules forbidding criminal punishment of
certain primary conduct,” as well as “rules prohibiting a certain
category of punishment for a class of defendants because of their
status or offense.”
Penry v.
Lynaugh, 492 U. S.
302, 330 (1989) ; see also
Teague,
supra, at 307.
Although
Teague describes new substantive rules as an
exception to the bar on retroactive application of procedural
rules, this Court has recognized that substantive rules “are more
accurately characterized as . . . not subject to the
bar.”
Schriro v.
Summerlin, 542 U. S. 348, 352,
n. 4 (2004). Second, courts must give retroactive effect to
new “ ‘ “watershed rules of criminal procedure”
implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal
proceeding.’ ”
Id., at 352; see also
Teague, 489
U. S., at 312–313.
It is undisputed, then, that
Teague
requires the retroactive application of new substantive and
watershed procedural rules in federal habeas proceedings.
Amicus, however, contends that
Teague was an
interpretation of the federal habeas statute, not a constitutional
command; and so, the argument proceeds,
Teague’s
retroactivity holding simply has no application in a State’s own
collateral review proceedings.
To support this claim,
amicus points to
language in
Teague that characterized the Court’s task as
“ ‘defin[ing] the scope of the writ.’ ”
Id., at
308 (quoting
Kuhlmann v.
Wilson, 477 U. S. 436,
447 (1986) (plurality opinion)); see also 489 U. S., at 317
(White, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“If we
are wrong in construing the reach of the habeas corpus statutes,
Congress can of course correct us . . . ”);
id.,
at 332 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“No new facts or arguments have
come to light suggesting that our [past] reading of the federal
habeas statute . . . was plainly mistaken”).
In addition,
amicus directs us to
Danforth v.
Minnesota, 552 U. S. 264 (2008) , in
which a majority of the Court held that
Teague does not
preclude state courts from giving retroactive effect to a broader
set of new constitutional rules than
Teague itself required.
552 U. S., at 266. The
Danforth majority concluded that
Teague’s general rule of nonretroactivity for new
constitutional rules of criminal procedure “was an exercise of this
Court’s power to interpret the federal habeas statute.” 552
U. S., at 278. Since
Teague’s retroactivity bar
“limit[s] only the scope of
federal habeas relief,” the
Danforth majority reasoned, States are free to make new
procedural rules retroactive on state collateral review. 552
U. S., at 281–282.
Amicus, however, reads too much into
these statements. Neither
Teague nor
Danforth had
reason to address whether States are required as a constitutional
matter to give retroactive effect to new substantive or watershed
procedural rules.
Teague originated in a federal, not state,
habeas proceeding; so it had no particular reason to discuss
whether any part of its holding was required by the Constitution in
addition to the federal habeas statute. And
Danforth held
only that
Teague’s general rule of nonretroactivity was an
interpretation of the federal habeas statute and does not prevent
States from providing greater relief in their own collateral review
courts. The
Danforth majority limited its analysis to
Teague’s general retroactivity bar, leaving open the
question whether
Teague’s two exceptions are binding on the
States as a matter of constitutional law. 552 U. S., at 278;
see also
id., at 277 (“[T]he case before us now does not
involve either of the ‘
Teague exceptions’ ”).
In this case, the Court must address part of the
question left open in
Danforth. The Court now holds that
when a new substantive rule of constitutional law controls the
outcome of a case, the Constitution requires state collateral
review courts to give retroactive effect to that rule.
Teague’s conclusion establishing the retroactivity of new
substantive rules is best understood as resting upon constitutional
premises. That constitutional command is, like all federal law,
binding on state courts. This holding is limited to
Teague’s
first exception for substantive rules; the constitutional status of
Teague’s exception for watershed rules of procedure need not
be addressed here.
This Court’s precedents addressing the nature of
substantive rules, their differences from procedural rules, and
their history of retroactive application establish that the
Constitution requires substantive rules to have retroactive effect
regardless of when a conviction became final.
The category of substantive rules discussed in
Teague originated in Justice Harlan’s approach to
retroactivity.
Teague adopted that reasoning. See 489
U. S., at 292, 312 (discussing
Mackey v.
United
States, 401 U. S. 667, 692 (1971) (opinion concurring in
judgments in part and dissenting in part); and
Desist v.
United States, 394 U. S. 244 , n. 2 (1969)
(Harlan, J., dissenting)). Justice Harlan defined substantive
constitutional rules as “those that place, as a matter of
constitutional interpretation, certain kinds of primary, private
individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal law-making
authority to proscribe.”
Mackey,
supra, at 692. In
Penry v.
Lynaugh, decided four months after
Teague, the Court recognized that “the first exception set
forth in
Teague should be understood to cover not only rules
forbidding criminal punishment of certain primary conduct but also
rules prohibiting a certain category of punishment for a class of
defendants because of their status or offense.”
492 U. S., at 330.
Penry explained that Justice
Harlan’s first exception spoke “in terms of substantive categorical
guarantees accorded by the Constitution, regardless of the
procedures followed.”
Id., at 329. Whether a new rule bars
States from proscribing certain conduct or from inflicting a
certain punishment, “[i]n both cases, the Constitution itself
deprives the State of the power to impose a certain pen-alty.”
Id., at 330.
Substantive rules, then, set forth categorical
constitutional guarantees that place certain criminal laws and
punishments altogether beyond the State’s power to impose. It
follows that when a State enforces a proscription or penalty barred
by the Constitution, the resulting conviction or sentence is, by
definition, unlawful. Procedural rules, in contrast, are designed
to enhance the accuracy of a conviction or sentence by regulating
“the
manner of determining the defendant’s culpability.”
Schriro, 542 U. S., at 353;
Teague,
supra, at 313. Those rules “merely raise the possibility
that someone convicted with use of the invalidated procedure might
have been acquitted otherwise.”
Schriro,
supra, at
352. Even where proce-dural error has infected a trial, the
resulting conviction or sentence may still be accurate; and, by
extension, the defendant’s continued confinement may still be
lawful. For this reason, a trial conducted under a procedure found
to be unconstitutional in a later case does not, as a general
matter, have the automatic consequence of invalidating a
defendant’s conviction or sentence.
The same possibility of a valid result does not
exist where a substantive rule has eliminated a State’s power to
proscribe the defendant’s conduct or impose a given punishment.
“[E]ven the use of impeccable factfinding procedures could not
legitimate a verdict” where “the conduct being penalized is
constitutionally immune from punishment.”
United States v.
United States Coin & Currency, 401 U. S. 715, 724
(1971) . Nor could the use of flawless sentencing procedures
legitimate a punishment where the Constitution immunizes the
defendant from the sentence imposed. “No circumstances call more
for the invocation of a rule of complete retroactivity.”
Ibid.
By holding that new substantive rules are,
indeed, retroactive,
Teague continued a long tradition of
giving retroactive effect to constitutional rights that go beyond
procedural guarantees. See
Mackey,
supra, at 692–693
(opinion of Harlan, J.) (“[T]he writ has historically been
available for attacking convictions on [substantive] grounds”).
Before
Brown v.
Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953) ,
“federal courts would never consider the merits of a constitutional
claim if the habeas petitioner had a fair opportunity to raise his
arguments in the original proceeding.”
Desist, 394
U. S., at 261 (Harlan, J., dissenting). Even in the pre-1953
era of restricted federal habeas, however, an exception was made
“when the habeas petitioner attacked the constitutionality of the
state statute under which he had been convicted. Since, in this
situation, the State had no power to proscribe the conduct for
which the petitioner was imprisoned, it could not constitutionally
insist that he remain in jail.”
Id., at 261, n. 2 (Harlan,
J., dissenting) (citation omitted).
In
Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371
(1880) , the Court addressed why substantive rules must have
retroactive effect regardless of when the defendant’s conviction
became final. At the time of that decision, “[m]ere error in the
judgment or proceedings, under and by virtue of which a party is
imprisoned, constitute[d] no ground for the issue of the writ.”
Id., at 375. Before
Siebold, the law might have been
thought to establish that so long as the conviction and sentence
were imposed by a court of competent jurisdiction, no habeas relief
could issue. In
Siebold, however, the petitioners attacked
the judgments on the ground that they had been convicted under
unconstitutional statutes. The Court explained that if “this
position is well taken, it affects the foundation of the whole
proceedings.”
Id., at 376. A conviction under an
unconstitutional law
“is not merely erroneous, but is illegal
and void, and cannot be a legal cause of imprisonment. It is true,
if no writ of error lies, the judgment may be final, in the sense
that there may be no means of reversing it. But . . . if
the laws are unconstitutional and void, the Circuit Court acquired
no jurisdiction of the causes.”
Id., at 376–377.
As discussed, the Court has concluded that the
same logic governs a challenge to a punishment that the
Constitution deprives States of authority to impose.
Penry,
supra, at 330; see also Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant?
Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142,
151 (1970) (“Broadly speaking, the original sphere for collateral
attack on a conviction was where the tribunal lacked jurisdiction
either in the usual sense or because the statute under which the
defendant had been prosecuted was unconstitutional or because the
sentence was one the court could not lawfully impose” (footnotes
omitted)). A conviction or sentence imposed in violation of a
substantive rule is not just erroneous but contrary to law and, as
a result, void. See
Siebold, 100 U. S., at 376. It
follows, as a general principle, that a court has no authority to
leave in place a conviction or sentence that violates a substantive
rule, regardless of whether the conviction or sentence became final
before the rule was announced.
Siebold and the other cases discussed in
this opinion, of course, do not directly control the question the
Court now answers for the first time. These precedents did not
involve a state court’s postconviction review of a conviction or
sentence and so did not address whether the Constitution requires
new substantive rules to have retroactive effect in cases on state
collateral review. These decisions, however, have important bearing
on the analysis necessary in this case.
In support of its holding that a conviction
obtained under an unconstitutional law warrants habeas relief, the
Siebold Court explained that “[a]n unconstitutional law is
void, and is as no law.”
Ibid. A penalty imposed pursuant to
an unconstitutional law is no less void because the prisoner’s
sentence became final before the law was held unconstitutional.
There is no grandfather clause that permits States to enforce
punishments the Constitution forbids. To conclude otherwise would
undercut the Constitution’s substantive guarantees. Writing for the
Court in
United States Coin & Currency, Justice Harlan
made this point when he declared that “[n]o circumstances call more
for the invocation of a rule of complete retroactivity” than when
“the conduct being penalized is constitutionally immune from
punishment.” 401 U. S., at 724.
United States Coin &
Currency involved a case on direct review; yet, for the reasons
explained in this opinion, the same principle should govern the
application of substantive rules on collateral review. As Justice
Harlan explained, where a State lacked the power to proscribe the
habeas petitioner’s conduct, “it could not constitutionally insist
that he remain in jail.”
Desist,
supra, at 261, n. 2
(dissenting opinion).
If a State may not constitutionally insist that
a prisoner remain in jail on federal habeas review, it may not
constitutionally insist on the same result in its own
postconviction proceedings. Under the Supremacy Clause of the
Constitution, state collateral review courts have no greater power
than federal habeas courts to mandate that aprisoner continue to
suffer punishment barred by the Constitution. If a state collateral
proceeding is open to a claim controlled by federal law, the state
court “has a duty to grant the relief that federal law requires.”
Yates, 484 U. S., at 218. Where state collateral review
proceedings permit prisoners to challenge the lawfulness of their
confinement, States cannot refuse to give retroactive effect to a
substantive constitutional right that determines the outcome of
that challenge.
As a final point, it must be noted that the
retroactive application of substantive rules does not implicate a
State’s weighty interests in ensuring the finality of convictions
and sentences.
Teague warned against the intrusiveness of
“
continually forc[ing] the States to marshal resources in
order to keep in prison defendants whose trials and appeals
conformed to then-existing constitutional standards.” 489
U. S., at 310. This concern has no application in the realm of
substantive rules, for no resources marshaled by a State could
preserve a conviction or sentence that the Constitution deprives
the State of power to impose. See
Mackey, 401 U. S., at
693 (opinion of Harlan, J.) (“There is little societal interest in
permitting the criminal process to rest at a point where it ought
properly never to repose”).
In adjudicating claims under its collateral
review procedures a State may not deny a controlling right asserted
under the Constitution, assuming the claim is properly presented in
the case. Louisiana follows these basic Supremacy Clause principles
in its postconviction proceedings for challenging the legality of a
sentence. The State’s collateral review procedures are open to
claims that a decision of this Court has rendered certain sentences
illegal, as a substantive matter, under the Eighth Amendment. See,
e.g., State v.
Dyer, 2011–1758, pp. 1–2 (La.
11/23/11), 77 So. 3d 928, 928–929 (
per curiam) (considering
claim on collateral review that this Court’s decision in
Graham v.
Florida, 560 U. S. 48 , rendered
petitioner’s life-without-parole sentence illegal). Montgomery
alleges that
Miller announced a substantive constitutional
rule and that the Louisiana Supreme Court erred by failing to
recognize its retroactive effect. This Court has jurisdiction to
review that determination.
III
This leads to the question whether
Miller’s prohibition on mandatory life without parole for
juvenile offenders indeed did announce a new substantive rule that,
under the Constitution, must be retroactive.
As stated above, a procedural rule “regulate[s]
only the
manner of determining the defendant’s culpability.”
Schriro, 542 U. S., at 353. A substantive rule, in
contrast, forbids “criminal punishment of certain primary conduct”
or prohibits “a certain category of punishment for a class of
defendants because of their status or offense.”
Penry, 492
U. S., at 330; see also
Schriro,
supra, at 353
(A substantive rule “alters the range of conduct or the class of
persons that the law punishes”). Under this standard, and for the
reasons explained below,
Miller announced a substantive rule
that is retroactive in cases on collateral review.
The “foundation stone” for
Miller’s
analysis was this Court’s line of precedent holding certain
punishments disproportionate when applied to juveniles. 567
U. S., at ___, n. 4 (slip op., at 8, n. 4). Those cases
include
Graham v.
Florida,
supra, which held
that the Eighth Amendment bars life without parole for juvenile
nonhomicide offenders, and
Roper v.
Simmons, 543
U. S. 551 , which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits
capital punishment for those under the age of 18 at the time of
their crimes. Protection against disproportionate punishment is the
central substantive guarantee of the Eighth Amendment and goes far
beyond the manner of determining a defendant’s sentence. See
Graham,
supra, at 59 (“The concept of proportionality
is central to the Eighth Amendment”);see also
Weems v.
United States, 217 U. S. 349 (1910);
Harmelin v.
Michigan, 501 U. S. 957 –998 (1991) (Kennedy, J.,
concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Miller took as its starting premise the
principle established in
Roper and
Graham that
“children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes
of sentencing.” 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 8) (citing
Roper,
supra, at 569–570; and
Graham,
supra, at 68). These differences result from children’s
“diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform,” and are
apparent in three primary ways:
“First, children have a ‘lack of maturity
and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility,’ leading to
recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking. Second,
children ‘are more vulnerable to negative influences and outside
pressures,’ including from their family and peers; they have
limited ‘control over their own environment’ and lack the ability
to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing settings.
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 irretrievable depravity.’ ” 567 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 8) (quoting
Roper, supra, at 569–570;
alterations, citations, and some internal quotation marks
omitted).
As a corollary to a child’s lesser culpability,
Miller recognized that “the distinctive attributes of youth
diminish the penological justifications” for imposing life without
parole on juvenile offenders. 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
9). Because retribution “relates to an offender’s blameworthiness,
the case for retribution is not as strong with a minor as with an
adult.”
Ibid. (quoting
Graham,
supra, at 71;
internal quotation marks omitted). The deterrence rationale
likewise does not suffice, since “the same characteristics that
render juveniles less culpable than adults—their immaturity,
recklessness, and impetuosity—make them less likely to consider
potential punishment.” 567 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at
9–10) (internal quotation marks omitted). The need for
incapacitation is lessened, too, because ordinary adolescent
development diminishes the likelihood that a juvenile offender
“ ‘forever will be a danger to society.’ ”
Id., at
___ (slip op., at 10) (quoting
Graham, 560 U. S., at
72). Rehabilitation is not a satisfactory rationale, either.
Rehabilitation cannot justify the sentence, as life without parole
“forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal.” 567 U. S., at
___ (slip op., at 10) (quoting
Graham,
supra, at
74).
These considerations underlay the Court’s
holding in
Miller that mandatory life-without-parole
sentences for children “pos[e] too great a risk of disproportionate
punishment.” 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17).
Miller requires that before sentencing a juvenile to life
without parole, the sentencing judge take into account “how
children are different, and how those differences counsel against
irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.”
Ibid.
The Court recognized that a sentencer mightencounter the rare
juvenile offender who exhibits such irretrievable depravity that
rehabilitation is impossible and life without parole is justified.
But in light of “children’s diminished culpability and heightened
capacity for change,”
Miller made clear that “appropriate
occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible
penalty will be uncommon.”
Ibid.
Miller, then, did more than require a
sentencer to consider a juvenile offender’s youth before imposing
life without parole; it established that the penological
justifications for life without parole collapse in light of “the
distinctive attributes of youth.”
Id., at ___ (slip op., at
9). Even if a court considers a child’s age before sentencing him
or her to a lifetime in prison, that sentence still violates the
Eighth Amendment for a child whose crime reflects
“ ‘unfortunate yet transient immaturity.’ ”
Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 17) (quoting
Roper, 543 U. S., at
573). Because
Miller determined that sentencing a child to
life without parole is excessive for all but “ ‘the rare
juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable
corruption,’ ” 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17)
(quoting
Roper,
supra, at 573), it rendered life
without parole an unconstitutional penalty for “a class of
defendants because of their status”—that is, juvenile offenders
whose crimes reflect the transient immaturity of youth.
Penry, 492 U. S., at 330. As a result,
Miller
announced a substantive rule of constitutional law. Like other
substantive rules,
Miller is retroactive because it
“ ‘necessarily carr[ies] a significant risk that a
defendant’ ”—here, the vast majority of juvenile
offenders—“ ‘faces a punishment that the law cannot impose
upon him.’ ”
Schriro, 542 U. S., at 352 (quoting
Bousley v.
United States, 523 U. S. 614, 620
(1998) ).
Louisiana nonetheless argues that
Miller
is procedural because it did not place any punishment beyond the
State’s power to impose; it instead required sentencing courts to
take children’s age into account before condemning them to die in
prison. In support of this argument, Louisiana points to
Miller’s statement that the 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.”
Miller,
supra, at ___ (slip op.,
at 20).
Miller, it is true, did not bar a punishment for all
juvenile offenders, as the Court did in
Roper or
Graham.
Miller did bar life without parole, however, for all but the
rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent
incorrigibility. For that reason,
Miller is no less
substantive than are
Roper and
Graham. Before
Miller, every juvenile convicted of a homicide offense could
be sentenced to life without parole. After
Miller, it will
be the rare juvenile offender who can receive that same sentence.
The only difference between
Roper and
Graham, on the
one hand, and
Miller, on the other hand, is that
Miller drew a line between children whose crimes reflect
transient immaturity and those rare children whose crimes reflect
irreparable corruption. The fact that life without parole could be
a proportionate sentence for the latter kind of juvenile offender
does not mean that all other children imprisoned under a
disproportionate sentence have not suffered the deprivation of a
substantive right.
To be sure,
Miller’s holding has a
procedural component.
Miller requires a sentencer to
consider a juvenile offender’s youth and attendant characteristics
before determining that life without parole is a proportionate
sentence. See 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20). Louisiana
contends that because
Miller requires this process, it must
have set forth a procedural rule. This argument, however, conflates
a procedural requirement necessary to implement a substantive
guarantee with a rule that “regulate[s] only the
manner of
determining the defendant’s culpability.”
Schriro,
supra, at 353. There are instances in which a substantive
change in the law must be attended by a procedure that enables a
prisoner to show that he falls within the category of persons whom
the law may no longer punish. See
Mackey, 401 U. S., at
692, n. 7 (opinion of Harlan, J.) (“Some rules may have both
procedural and substantive ramifications, as I have used those
terms here”). For example, when an element of a criminal offense is
deemed unconstitutional, a prisoner convicted under that offense
receives a new trial where the government must prove the prisoner’s
conduct still fits within the modified definition of the crime. In
a similar vein, when the Constitution prohibits a particular form
of punishment for a class of persons, an affected prisoner receives
a procedure through which he can show that he belongs to the
protected class. See,
e.g.,
Atkins v.
Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 317 (2002) (requiring a
procedure to determine whether a particular individual with an
intellectual disability “fall[s] within the range of
[intellectually disabled] offenders about whom there is a national
consensus” that execution is impermissible). Those procedural
requirements do not, of course, transform substantive rules into
procedural ones.
The procedure
Miller prescribes is no
different. A hearing where “youth and its attendant
characteristics” are considered as sentencing factors is necessary
to separate those juveniles who may be sentenced to life without
parole from those who may not. 567 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
1). The hearing does not replace but rather gives effect to
Miller’s substantive holding that life without parole is an
excessive sentence for children whose crimes reflect transient
immaturity.
Louisiana suggests that
Miller cannot
have made a constitutional distinction between children whose
crimes reflect transient immaturity and those whose crimes reflect
irreparable corruption because
Miller did not require trial
courts to make a finding of fact regarding a child’s
incorrigibility. That this finding is not required, however, speaks
only to the degree of procedure
Miller mandated in order to
implement its substantive guarantee. When a new substantive rule of
constitutional law is established, this Court is careful to limit
the scope of any attendant procedural requirement to avoid
intruding more than necessary upon the States’ sovereign
administration of their criminal justice systems. See
Ford
v.
Wainwright, 477 U. S. 399 –417 (1986) (“[W]e leave
to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce
the constitutional restriction upon [their] execution of
sentences”). Fidelity to this important principle of federalism,
however, should not be construed to demean the substantive
character of the federal right at issue. That
Miller did not
impose a formal factfinding requirement does not leave States free
to sentence a child whose crime reflects transient immaturity to
life without parole. To the contrary,
Miller established
that this punishment is disproportionate under the Eighth
Amendment.
For this reason, the death penalty cases
Louisiana cites in support of its position are inapposite. See,
e.g.,
Beard v.
Banks, 542 U. S. 406, 408
(2004) (holding nonretroactive the rule that forbids instructing a
jury to disregard mitigating factors not found by a unanimous
vote);
O’Dell v.
Netherland, 521 U. S. 151, 153
(1997) (holding nonretroactive the rule providing that, if the
prosecutor cites future dangerousness, the defendant may inform the
jury of his ineligibility for parole);
Sawyer v.
Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 229 (1990) (holding
nonretroactive the rule that forbids suggesting to a capital jury
that it is not responsible for a death sentence). Those decisions
altered the processes in which States must engage before sentencing
a person to death. The processes may have had some effect on the
likelihood that capital punishment would be imposed, but none of
those decisions rendered a certain penalty unconstitutionally
excessive for a category of offenders.
The Court now holds that
Miller announced
a substantive rule of constitutional law. The conclusion that
Miller states a substantive rule comports with the
principles that informed
Teague.
Teague sought to
balance the important goals of finality and comity with the liberty
interests of those imprisoned pursuant to rules later deemed
unconstitutional.
Miller’s conclusion that the sentence of
life without parole is disproportionate for the vast majority of
juvenile offenders raises a grave risk that many are being held in
violation of the Constitution.
Giving
Miller retroactive effect,
moreover, does not require States to relitigate sentences, let
alone convictions, in every case where a juvenile offender received
mandatory life without parole. A State may remedy a
Miller
violation by permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be
considered for parole, rather than by resentencing them. See,
e.g., Wyo. Stat. Ann. §6–10–301(c) (2013) (juvenile homicide
offenders eligible for parole after 25 years). Allowing those
offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose
crimes reflected only transient immaturity—and who have since
matured—will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in
violation of the Eighth Amendment.
Extending parole eligibility to juvenile
offenders does not impose an onerous burden on the States, nor does
it disturb the finality of state convictions. Those prisoners who
have shown an inability to reform will continue to serve life
sentences. The opportunity for release will be afforded to those
who demonstrate the truth of
Miller’s central intuition—that
children who commit even heinous crimes are capable of change.
Petitioner has discussed in his submissions to
this Court his evolution from a troubled, misguided youth to a
model member of the prison community. Petitioner states that he
helped establish an inmate boxing team, of which he later became a
trainer and coach. He alleges that he has contributed his time and
labor to the prison’s silkscreen department and that he strives to
offer advice and serve as a role model to other inmates. These
claims have not been tested or even addressed by the State, so the
Court does not confirm their accuracy. The petitioner’s
sub-missions are relevant, however, as an example of onekind of
evidence that prisoners might use to demonstrate
rehabilitation.
* * *
Henry Montgomery has spent each day of the
past 46 years knowing he was condemned to die in prison. Perhaps it
can be established that, due to exceptional circumstances, this
fate was a just and proportionate punishment for the crime he
committed as a 17-year-old boy. In light of what this Court has
said in
Roper,
Graham, and
Miller about how
children are constitutionally different from adults in their level
of culpability, however, prisoners like Montgomery must be given
the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable
corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life
outside prison walls must be restored.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana
is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.