On Monday, Nov. 9, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the two Florida cases in which youth under the age of 18 were convicted in adult court and subsequently received a sentence of life without parole (LWOP). Both cases have drawn considerable attention which has resulted in the filings of briefs by many outside parties related to this issue. Whether the Court will ultimately apply similar standards that were used in the Roper case (which banned use of the death penalty for youth under age 18), essentially that juveniles are developmentall clearly not adults and therefore should not be subject to the same sentencing conditions, remains to be seen. These cases are particularly aggregious in states in which youth are subject to prosecutorial discretion on waiver, three strikes you’re out, or other processes which severely restrict the kind of consideration we would all want for our own children.
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