Sotomayor cites Kavanaugh's own words to slam his decision allowing life sentences for minors
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly cited fellow Justice Brett Kavanaugh's past opinions in a blistering dissent after the court's conservative majority effectively allowed automatic life sentences without parole for minors.
The court ruled 6-3 on Thursday that judges do not need to find "permanent incorrigibility" before sentencing juvenile offenders to life sentences without parole in a case upholding the sentence of Brett Jones, who was 15 when he stabbed his grandfather to death in a dispute over the teen's girlfriend.
Jones was sentenced to life without parole, the mandatory sentence under Mississippi law, before the Supreme Court ruled in the 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision that mandatory life sentences without parole for minors are unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments." The opinion said that juvenile offenses reflect "transient immaturity" and because children's brains are less developed they are "less culpable" than adults and have more potential to be rehabilitated. Jones was granted a re-sentencing but the judge upheld the life sentence. The Supreme Court later ruled in the 2016 Montgomery v. Louisiana case that the Miller ruling could be applied retroactively, prompting the appeal from Jones. The Supreme Court appeared to break with those past decisions when it upheld his sentence on Thursday.
"According to Jones, in order to impose a life-without-parole sentence on a defendant who committed a murder when he or she was under 18, the sentencer must make a separate factual finding that the defendant is permanently incorrigible," Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. "The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected Jones's argument, relying on this Court's express statement in Montgomery that 'Miller did not require trial courts to make a finding of fact regarding a child's incorrigibility.'"
Sotomayor cited Kavanaugh's opinion from last term to dispute the majority's reading of the precedents, arguing that it was "contrary to explicit holdings in both decisions."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/sotomayor-cites-kavanaughs-own-words-to-slam-his-decision-allowing-life-sentences-for-minors/ar-BB1fX5s6
Guess he was drunk and couldn't remember.
= new reply since forum marked as read
