In June, the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama issued its third opinion about youth offenders in the past decade that reflects a significant shift in law and public policy surrounding the treatment of juveniles in the criminal justice system. California law does not violate Miller on its face, but by operation its results reflect the very practice that the court found unconstitutional. Senate Bill 9, consistent with the values expressed in Miller, seeks to change that.
The court’s decisions are grounded upon a single, fundamental premise: Children are different from adults. Building upon Roper v. Simmons (2005), which eliminated the juvenile death penalty, and Graham v. Florida (2010) which prohibited a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes committed by juveniles, Miller held that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life without parole for juveniles convicted of murder. It did not ban life without parole for juvenile offenders; only that such a sentence cannot be mandatory.
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