Pennsylvania's top court just made it way harder to sentence kids to life in prison

“What we won is really fundamental to giving these kids a fair shot, and also to really enforcing Miller and Montgomery in Pennsylvania,” said Marsha Levick, deputy director of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, who argued the case for Batts. “Initially ruling that Miller wasn’t retroactive in 2013 was a misstep by the court, to stay the least. Now that we are conforming as a consequence of Montgomery, I think the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recognized the nature of those decisions and is ensuring those sentences are only imposed in the rarest of circumstances.”