The constitutional challenge of a youth convicted of murder on direct appeal of his life-without-parole sentence is back in the hands of a Northampton County judge, now that the state Supreme Court has remanded his case for resentencing in light of U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
However, the high court’s ruling in Commonwealth v. Batts only applies to a handful of appeals in instances where juveniles preserved their direct appeal rights and received sentences of life with parole before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama, the case that said such sentences, which had been allowed in Pennsylvania for juveniles guilty of first- and second-degree murder, are in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
