The California Supreme Court recently made it clear that statutes cannot have a presumption in favor of life without parole for juvenile offenders.
In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama in June 2012, banning mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences (JLWOP), Juvenile Law Center has argued in cases across the country on behalf of inmates who were sentenced to mandatory JLWOP before Miller was decided.
As kids, these inmates were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison, without any consideration of their age, personal history, or other influences. There was no consideration as to whether they were truly unable to be rehabilitated and to ever rejoin society—all factors that Miller says courts must now consider before sentencing a kid to JLWOP.