Last year, in Graham v. Florida, the court ruled that sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole was unconstitutional — but only for crimes that did not involve killings. The decision affected about 130 prisoners convicted of committing crimes like rape, armed robbery and kidnapping before they turned 18.
Human rights groups say there are more than 2,000 juvenile offenders serving sentences of life without parole. Writing for the majority in Graham, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that only the United States and perhaps Israel imposed the punishment even for homicides committed by juveniles.
The follow-up cases the court agreed to hear on Monday concern a subcategory of the remaining group, those who were 14 or younger when they were involved in murders. There are about 70 such prisoners, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law firm in Alabama that represents the two inmates in the new cases.
Focusing on very young offenders may be good strategy for opponents of harsh punishment, and it has worked before. The Supreme Court eliminated the juvenile death penalty in stages, first ruling it unconstitutional as applied to offenders younger than 16 in Thompson v. Oklahoma in 1988 and then those younger than 18 in Roper v. Simmons in 2005.
The two cases the court agreed to hear Monday might also allow the court to draw a further distinction — between offenders who participated in crimes that led to killings and those who actually committed the killings.
One of the cases, Jackson v. Hobbs, No. 10-9647, concerns Kuntrell Jackson, an Arkansas man who was 14 when he and two older youths tried to rob a video store in 1999. One of the other youths shot and killed a store clerk. The second case, Miller v. Alabama, No. 10-9646, involves Evan Miller, an Alabama prisoner who was 14 in 2003 when he and an older youth beat a 52-year-old neighbor and set fire to his home after the three had spent the evening smoking marijuana and playing drinking games. The neighbor died of smoke inhalation.