The Court of Appeals recently affirmed a Life Sentence Without Possibility of Parole (LWOP) imposed on a 16 year old. State v. Windom (See April 10 SCOIDBlog). Hopefully, the Idaho Supreme Court will accept review of that sentence in light of the strong mitigating circumstances.
One wonders, however, why LWOP is even on the table for a juvenile. According to Human Rights Watch, the United States is alone in the world in imposing LWOPs on juveniles and that we have nearly 2500 offenders serving LWOP for crimes committed while they were juveniles. Further, it estimates that 59 percent of youth who receive LWOP had no prior adjudications or convictions! Additionally, data shows that black youth are serving LWOP sentences at a per capita rate that is 10 times higher than the rate of white youth.
Luckily, there is a bill pending before Congress which would require states to give juvenile offenders an opportunity to be paroled. HR 2289, entitled the Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009, would effectively end juvenile life without parole. Here's a link to the text of the Bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2289
Here is a link to a page where you can get information about the bill and access a petition in favor of the Bill. http://hr4300.com/Home_Page.php
Also, it appears that there will be a hearing on the Bill on June 9th before the House Judiciary Committee. Here is a link with addresses and suggestions if you want to write a letter to the Committee in support of the Bill. http://sites.google.com/site/hr2289/.
Finally, the May 25 entry in Professor Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy Blog has an article on this topic yesterday along with some additional links. http://sentencing.typepad.com/
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