With the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issuing a much-anticipated ruling on juveniles’ prison sentences of life without parole, Pennsylvania courts have begun to move forward toward resentencing hundreds of persons who had sentences struck down as unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court late last month unanimously determined that courts should have a presumption against imposing sentences of life without parole for juveniles, and that, to overcome that presumption, prosecutors will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the offender is incapable of being rehabilitated. The ruling in Commonwealth v. Batts is widely viewed as the capstone on a series of decisions involving life sentences for juveniles, and a ruling that should guide practitioners through an area of law that has undergone a sea change over the past few years.
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