In Miller vs. Alabama, the question of whether or not a life without parole sentence for minors violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments was raised and discussed (1). In July of 2003, Evan Miller, along with an accomplice named Colby Smith, severely beat Cole Cannon with a baseball bat and burned down his trailer while he was inside (1). Miller was only fourteen year olds at the time of the crime (1). In 2004, Miller was transferred from Lawrence County’s juvenile court to Lawrence County’s Circuit Court to be tried as an adult (1). He was going to be tried for capital murder during the course of an arson (1). In 2006, a jury found Miller guilty and sentenced him to a mandatory life imprisonment without parole (1). Miller eventually filed a post-trial motion, arguing that his sentence was …show more content…
Three boys, aged fourteen, robbed a movie store in Blytheville in November 1999 (1). The petitioner, Kuntrell Jackson, discovered one of his accomplices, Derrick Shields, had a shotgun hidden (1). Shields shot the store clerk, and the boys fled the scene (1). In July 2003, Jackson was sentenced to a mandatory life imprisonment without parole, same as Miller (1). Jackson filed a petition to seek a writ of habeas corpus in circuit court, which was dismissed by the circuit court, and the decision was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Arkansas (1). In July 2014, the United States Supreme Court issued that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for minors (seventeen and younger) convicted of homicide is unconstitutional in a five to four vote (2). The Court struck down statutes in twenty-nine states that provide a mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children (2). The lower courts are now instructed to conduct new sentence hearings where judges will have to take into account the individual characters, circumstances, age, and the events surrounding the crime (2). The court did not ban juvenile life without parole in all circumstances