Emily Simpson

And...

I believe the Supreme Court had a decision that said that putting minors in prison for life without parole would be cruel and unusual punishment.

So the United States is the only nation that allows people who committed crimes as minors to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a punishment widely criticized under international law.

Critics argue that condemning children to spend the rest of their lives behind bars ignores research showing that young people differ from adults in development, judgment, and susceptibility to peer influence.

Despite this, thousands of individuals in the U.S.

have received life without parole sentences for crimes committed as youth, and these penalties disproportionately affect black and brown teenagers.

So over the past two decades, the U.S.

Supreme Court has limited some of the harshest sentences for minors under the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The most recent court case is this 2021 Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed that age must be considered in sentencing but allowed states flexibility in how they evaluate youth-related factors.

So the way I understood it was they say it's cruel and unusual punishment.

They also didn't, I believe in some of the earlier decisions, they didn't say whether it was retroactive or not.

So then they had to, the latest decision, I believe they did say it's retroactive.

So you can go back and reassess and re-sentence.

It's called permanent incorrigibility.

which is a very long word or a big word to, it refers to the legal yet highly debated concept that a juvenile offender is so deeply ingrained in criminal behavior that they are incapable of reform.

They were saying that was the standard of whether they deserve life without parole.

Right.

It has to be shown that they had permanent incorrigibility, meaning that no matter what rehabilitation, he's going to commit the crime again.

Right.

So that was the standard, and they let the states decide whether there's a showing of permanent incorrigibility.