Juvenile Life Sentencing Case Study
Introduction Out of all of the great powers in the world, the United States is the only country that still allows its courts to handout life sentences to juveniles who break the law.
According to Lisa Yun (2011), A recent study conducted by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international revealed that there are currently at least 2574 inmates incarcerated in the United States who have been sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as adolescents (p. 728).
With court cases such as Graham v Florid and Sullivan v Florida the court system has shown small progressions towards terminating a judge’s ability to deliver life sentences to juveniles, but it does not give a great …show more content…
735). Famous cases that involve the question of sentencing juveniles to life in jail without parole include Graham v Florida, Sullivan v Florida, and Roper v Simmons. In the case of Graham v Florida, Terrance Graham was only one month shy of turning eighteen when he was sentenced to life in jail without parole. Graham was originally arrested at the age of sixteen for armed robbery and spent a year in a pre-trial detention center before getting placed on probation for the next three years. When he was seventeen years old Terrance violated his probation with his involvement in a home invasion with two twenty-year-old friends. According to …show more content…
Data has shown that out of the 192 countries in the United Nations that the only countries that still allows juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole is the United States and Somalia (Yun, 2011). Soon the U. S. will be alone in on having this ability because Somalia has implicated that they will soon adapt to the CRC. The United States delegation has said to the United Nations that they will only use the sentence of life imprisonment without parole for only particular cases and that the sentence is reserved for only the worst offenders. This process has not been followed and has been shown in cases such as People v Petty. In the case of People v Petty, Petty was sent to prison for life at the age of fifteen for encouraging his twelve year old accomplice to kill their victim (Yun, 2011). The United States seems to be alone on having the ability to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole, and in a 2008 study it is show that roughly .02 percent of offenders serving life without parole were juveniles when they committed the crime. (Pilfer,
According to Lisa Yun (2011), A recent study conducted by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international revealed that there are currently at least 2574 inmates incarcerated in the United States who have been sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as adolescents (p. 728).
With court cases such as Graham v Florid and Sullivan v Florida the court system has shown small progressions towards terminating a judge’s ability to deliver life sentences to juveniles, but it does not give a great …show more content…
735). Famous cases that involve the question of sentencing juveniles to life in jail without parole include Graham v Florida, Sullivan v Florida, and Roper v Simmons. In the case of Graham v Florida, Terrance Graham was only one month shy of turning eighteen when he was sentenced to life in jail without parole. Graham was originally arrested at the age of sixteen for armed robbery and spent a year in a pre-trial detention center before getting placed on probation for the next three years. When he was seventeen years old Terrance violated his probation with his involvement in a home invasion with two twenty-year-old friends. According to …show more content…
Data has shown that out of the 192 countries in the United Nations that the only countries that still allows juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole is the United States and Somalia (Yun, 2011). Soon the U. S. will be alone in on having this ability because Somalia has implicated that they will soon adapt to the CRC. The United States delegation has said to the United Nations that they will only use the sentence of life imprisonment without parole for only particular cases and that the sentence is reserved for only the worst offenders. This process has not been followed and has been shown in cases such as People v Petty. In the case of People v Petty, Petty was sent to prison for life at the age of fifteen for encouraging his twelve year old accomplice to kill their victim (Yun, 2011). The United States seems to be alone on having the ability to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole, and in a 2008 study it is show that roughly .02 percent of offenders serving life without parole were juveniles when they committed the crime. (Pilfer,