Retroactive Application of Miller v. Alabama to Eliminate Life Sentences Imposed on Juveniles

In 2012, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear Miller v. Alabama, which involved two 14-year-old boys who were convicted of murder during an attempted robbery. The state court allowed the juveniles to be tried as adults. As a result, at 14-years-old, they were sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole due to mandatory sentencing guidelines, which did not allow the judge to consider any factors related to the juvenile’s life. In evaluating the state’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled that life without parole for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, when mitigating factors are not considered in the sentencing. The judge writing for the majority stated:

The Federal Supervised Release System: Kicking an Offender Down When He Is Trying to Get Back Up

In 1984, the Sentencing Reform Act abolished the Federal Parole System and replaced it with the Federal Supervised Release System. Though the Federal Supervised Release System was supposed to serve the same rehabilitative function for offenders as the parole system, supervised release has led to many negative consequences for offenders. Instead of serving as a system promoting offender rehabilitation as Congress intended, the supervised release system has actually served as more of a leash, pulling offenders right back into prison.

           

Under the previous parole system, a defendant would be sentenced to a term of imprisonment and after serving the minimum sentence for his prison term, a parole board would determine whether the defendant was ready for release. When the inmate was released from jail on parole, a parole officer would then monitor him or her in the community. The effect of the parole system was that the individual was serving a portion of his or her jail time out in the community under supervision. It seemed reasonable that if one were let out of jail early, that there would be some type of supervision of the individual while out in the community completing his sentence.