In a 6-3 decision in Jones v. Mississippi, the justices held that the Eighth Amendment does not require judges to find that a person convicted of a murder they committed before they were 18 is forever irredeemable before sentencing them to life without parole.
The petitioner, Brett Jones, who was given such a sentence after being convicted of murder for killing his grandfather when he was 15, had argued that the high court's rulings in two previous cases — Miller v. Alabama
and Montgomery v. Louisiana — barred the judge in his case from condemning him to life in prison without first finding that he was "permanently incorrigible," a standard that comes from the Montgomery decision.In Miller, the high court held in 2012 that under the Eighth Amendment, a defendant who commits murder when younger than 18 can only be sentenced to life without parole if the sentence isn't mandatory and the sentencing judge has discretion not to impose it. In Montgomery, decided in 2016, the justices said that the Miller ruling applied retroactively in cases being reviewed outside the direct appeals process and that Miller barred life without parole except for "those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility."
Under those rulings, a judge who imposes a life-without-parole sentence on a juvenile defendant must also make a separate factual finding that the defendant is irreparably corrupt, Jones contended in his petition for certiorari. The trial judge who sentenced Jones did not make such a finding.
But in its ruling Thursday, the high court's majority disagreed with that assessment.
"The problem for Jones is that Miller and Montgomery squarely rejected such a requirement," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, adding that "the court has already ruled that a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility is not required."
"In a case involving an individual who was under 18 when he or she committed a homicide, a state's discretionary sentencing system is both constitutionally necessary and constitutionally sufficient," according to the decision.
When Jones was convicted for killing his grandfather when he was 15 years old, Mississippi law called for a mandatory sentence of life without parole for murder. But after the Supreme Court held in Miller that such a sentence can only be imposed on a juvenile if it is not mandatory, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered Jones to be resentenced.
The judge in Jones' case again ordered him to serve life without parole, and Jones appealed, citing the Miller and Montgomery decisions.
"Without a requirement to find permanent incorrigibility before imposing life without parole, the command of Miller and Montgomery to restrict the sentence to rare, permanently incorrigible juveniles loses its force as a rule of law," Jones said in his Supreme Court petition.
But "that is an incorrect interpretation of Miller and Montgomery," Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, which also included Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion.
Instead, Miller and Montgomery allow a judge to consider a defendant's youth as a mitigating circumstance and only impose a sentence of life without parole in cases where that sentence is appropriate, the opinion said.
"If the Miller or Montgomery court wanted to require sentencers to also make a factual finding of permanent incorrigibility, the court easily could have said so — and surely would have said so," according to the majority. "But the court did not say that, or anything like it."
States can impose sentencing limits for juvenile defendants who are convicted of murder, including prohibiting them from receiving life without parole or requiring judges to make extra factual findings before sentencing them to life without parole, Justice Kavanaugh added.
"But the U. S. Constitution, as this court's precedents have interpreted it, does not demand those particular policy approaches," he wrote.
The decision signals that the high court's new conservative majority will not expand the reach of the court's Eighth Amendment decisions concerning sentences for juveniles, according to professor Richard Bonnie of the University of Virginia School of Law.
"The only hopeful sign for those who support those decisions is that Justice Kavanaugh's opinion for the court did summersaults to avoid saying that it was overruling any of the court's previous decisions," he said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent struck a similar tone.
The court's majority decision "guts" the Miller and Montgomery rulings, Justice Sotomayor wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
"Today, the court distorts Miller and Montgomery beyond recognition," she said.
Miller did stop short of prohibiting life without parole for all juveniles convicted of murder, Justice Sotomayor acknowledged. But it did require judges to distinguish between juvenile defendants whose crimes reflect temporary immaturity and those whose crimes reflect irreparable corruption, she said.
"As such, before imposing a sentence of [life without parole], a sentencer must actually 'make that judgment,' and make it correctly," Justice Sotomayor wrote, quoting Miller.
The majority's claim that Miller bars only mandatory life-without-parole sentences and requires only a sentencing procedure to consider youth as a mitigating circumstance is wrong, according to the dissent.
"If sentencing discretion is all that is required, far too many juvenile offenders will be sentenced to die in prison," Justice Sotomayor wrote.
In his concurrence, Justice Thomas said the majority rightly found that the Eighth Amendment doesn't require a judge to find that a juvenile defendant be permanently incorrigible before sentencing them to life without parole.
But, he said, the majority used a "strained reading" of the Montgomery decision to come to its conclusion and should instead have admitted that Montgomery had been incorrectly decided and "just acknowledge that Montgomery had no basis in law or the Constitution."
Mary B. McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, an amici in the case supporting Jones, told Law360 in a statement that "for horrific crimes like homicide, a sentence of life with the possibility of parole would satisfy the public's interest and would at least allow for children capable of rehabilitation to get a chance at a meaningful life outside of prison."
"With this decision, judges can utter a few magic words and take that possibility away," she said.
Another amici, the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, said in its own statement that the decision "will undoubtedly lead to further litigation about when a life without parole sentence can be imposed on a child and may be implemented unevenly across the country."
Both that group and Josh Rovner, senior advocacy associate for The Sentencing Project, said lawmakers should eliminate life without parole for minors in the wake of the decision.
"The United States is a global outlier in its harsh treatment of our youth, especially youth of color who are disproportionately sentenced to life imprisonment," Rovner said in a statement.
The Mississippi attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment. But in a November statement after arguments in the case, Attorney General Lynn Fitch said, "Mississippi's individualized hearings satisfy the Eighth Amendment because they allow for a just and fair consideration of youth and all its attendant characteristics."
Attorneys for Jones declined to comment.
Jones is represented by David M. Shapiro, Jacob Howard, Amir H. Ali and Devi Rao of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and Jeffrey T. Green, David A. Goldenberg, Marlow Svatek and Andrew F. Rodheim of Sidley Austin LLP.
The state of Mississippi is represented by Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Solicitor General Kristi H. Johnson, Deputy Solicitor General Krissy C. Nobile, Assistant Solicitor General Justin L. Matheny and Special Assistant Attorney General Scott Stuart.
The case is Jones v. Mississippi, case number 18-1259, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
--Editing by Aaron Pelc.