In Miller v. Alabama, United States Supreme Court held that imposing a mandatory sentence on a child offender constituted a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The question remained whether the holding in Miller applied retroactively to cases on collateral review. Three years later, the court took up that question in Montgomery v. Louisiana and held that Miller’s prohibition on mandatory life without parole sentences for child homicide offenders, announced a new substantive rule that, under the Constitution, is retroactive in cases on collateral review.
The argument in Montgomery provides a roadmap for future Eighth Amendment challenges. Specifically, Miller‘s substantive and procedural aspects has new implications for the scope of the Eighth Amendment and offers interesting opportunities for future adult offenders to challenge the constitutionality of mandatory life without parole sentences and life without parole sentences. Lost in the discussion about the question of the application of Miller to cases on collateral appeal are the broader consequences of the Miller decision in both Its substantive and procedural components. In fact, the retroactivity discussion in Montgomery sheds light on these potential collateral consequences. As a substantive decision, Miller extends the core principle of Woodson v. Carolina and Lockett v. Ohio that criminal offenders deserve individualized sentencing consideration. As such, mandatory death penalty sentences and mandatory child life without parole sentences, violate the Eighth Amendment. Since life without parole sentences is the imposition of a death penalty by other means, commonly called death by incarceration, Miller‘s core principle of individualized sentencing should also apply to mandatory life without parole and life without parole sentences.
The court has stated that death is different, and now kids are different, so there is no reason that life without parole should not be considered different just the same. The consequences of the sentence is significant enough to mandate judicial consideration of mitigating evidence. The idea here is that the seriousness of the sentence invokes the Eighth Amendment requirement of individualized sentencing and consideration of mitigating evidence, such that cabining [confining] the application of this constitutional principle to the death penalty and child life without parole seems arbitrary. A broad reading of Miller as a procedural decision similarly opens the door to a host of arguments, but related to life without parole sentences, not mandatory life without parole.
If Miller‘s core principle is requiring consideration of mitigating characteristics at sentencing in light of the rehabilitation potential of children, then it follows that subsequent hearings further into an offender’s time spent in prison might also be helpful to determine the length of sentence. Imposing a life without parole sentence threatens human rights in similar ways to mandatory sentence. The mandatory sentence denies consideration of one’s potential for rehabilitation. The life without parole sentence denies any future consideration of one’s actual rehabilitation. Refusing the offender a second look, and deciding that as a one-time final matter, forecloses any opportunity to present evidence supporting release from prison, just as a mandatory sentence forecloses any opportunity to present evidence supporting the opportunity for release from prison. The human right here lies in the procedure, the opportunity for a court or parole board to consider the merits of an offender’s case for mitigation and release.
The procedural consequences of Miller then suggest that life without parole sentences may also violate the Eighth Amendment, and that they deny consideration of mitigating evidence at a point after the initial sentencing hearing. Under each conception of Miller, there exists significant potential to challenge the constitutionality of mandatory life without parole and life without parole sentences. In light of Miller and the Montgomery decision, prisoners serving mandatory life without parole or life without parole sentences can use those cases to springboard from to immediately file either a direct or collateral fill in the court, claiming their mandatory life without parole or life without parole sentence violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Then let the fighting to abolish mandatory life without parole and life without parole sentences begin across America. From the belly of the beast at Prison Radio. I am Shakaboona. Thank you for listening.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
