Blog: JLWOP

On Sunday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act to give some kids sentenced to life without parole an opportunity to earn a second chance. California currently has 309 inmates who could be affected by this.
KPCC explains:

Under the new law, people who were convicted of murder or other serious crimes as juveniles can petition a judge for reconsideration of their sentences. They can only do that after they’ve served 15 years. An inmate must show remorse and be enrolled in rehabilitative programs.
If an inmate meets the criteria, a judge could decide to shorten his or her sentence to 25 years to life with a chance for parole. The inmate would then go through the same vetting process that all offenders undergo when they’re up for parole.

While the US Supreme Court recently struck down mandatory JLWOP sentences, California was not affected by the ruling, as the state's judges already have sentencing discretion.

Most students entering Anne Donohue’s narrative radio class had no idea how to record and edit audio, nor did they have an ear for what makes a good story. But that didn’t stop the Boston University (BU) College of Communication (COM) associate professor from handing them a tough assignment: analyze all angles of juvenile life-without-parole sentences, and come back with a story.
The results were impressive—Donohue’s students produced a six-part series titled “Life Without Parole: Juvenile Justice?” which this spring won the Associated Press award for best college documentary. And the subject was timely, as the Supreme Court ruled last week that juvenile life-without-parole sentences violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
“Teenagers should not be locked up for life, at great expense to the taxpayer, if there is a chance they can be rehabilitated or mature into productive members of society,” says Donohue (COM’88), an award-winning radio producer and editor. “If a teen who kills is psychologically damaged and is a truly dangerous sociopath, he belongs in a mental health facility, not a prison. And some of these kids who have been locked up for life were not even the killers, but accomplices who drove cars or were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) today ruled that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of murder are unconstitutional. Justice Elena Kegan wrote the majority opinion, which focused on the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Writing at the SCOTUSblog, Tejinder Singh elaborates on the decision:

The Court’s opinion brings together two strands of precedent to hold that a mandatory life-without-parole sentence for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment. The first strand holds that the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits punishments that enact a mismatch between the culpability of a class of offenders and the severity of the penalty. Citing, among cases, Roper and Graham, the Court explains that juveniles have always been regarded as less culpable because the distinctive attributes of youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harshest penalties on juvenile offenders, even when they commit severe crimes. The second line of precedent holds that life without parole shares key characteristics with the death penalty, and thus raises similar Eighth Amendment concerns, most notably that defendants are entitled to individualized consideration when facing such a severe sanction.
Weaving these two lines of precedent together, the Court held that mandatory life without parole violates the Eighth Amendment. Such sentencing regimes, the court explained, “preclude a sentence from taking account of an offender’s age and the wealth of characteristics and circumstances attendant to it,” including “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences,” as well as the juvenile’s “family and home environment,” and the circumstances of the offense, including “the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him.” By eliding these key factors, mandatory life without parole “poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment.”

NYU's School of Law Dean Randy Hertz joins a growing list of legal scholars and youth advocates calling for an end to the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole (JLWOP). 
Writing in The Nation, Hertz explains:

In Roper v. Simmons, which ruled out the death penalty for under-age offenders in 2005, the Court reasoned that “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders” because they are less mature and their sense of responsibility has not fully developed. They are more vulnerable to negative internal and external influences, including peer pressure. Unlike adults, they can’t control or escape dysfunctional homes and dangerous neighborhoods—two major contributing factors to youth crime. They also have a greater chance for rehabilitation. Thus, as the Court said, “from a moral standpoint it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult.”
In 2010, the Court applied the same guiding logic in its decision in Graham v. Florida, concluding that children convicted of non-homicide crimes cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. As Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, “Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of ‘irretrievably depraved character’ than are the actions of adults.”
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The recognition that children are different is supported by recent neuroscience and psychosocial studies that have shown adolescence to be a period of intense change in the brain. We now know that the parts of the brain that drive emotional reactions, impulses and reactivity to peers develop before those that control impulses and imagine consequences, and which enable adults to resist pressures, delay gratification and weigh risk and reward. Scientists who study the teenage brain describe it as akin to a car with a fully functioning gas pedal but no brakes.