The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s interpretation of Miller v. Alabama, issued last week, deepens the divide among the circuits on the application of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent opinion declaring mandatory life sentences for juveniles as unconstitutional.
The appeals court had been presented with applications to bring successive habeas petitions by three inmates seeking to raise claims related to the Miller decision — all three had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, two in Pennsylvania and one in New Jersey, and argued that Miller can apply retroactively.
