Life Without Parole For Minors

Bailey Graham
Professor Cory Lock
Rhetoric and Composition #1
24 Oct 2015
Life Sentences Without Parole for Minors
Introduction
Before 1980, life without parole was very rarely imposed on children. In today’s society we are consumed with the idea of keeping everyone safe; this has led to a high incarceration rate, especially with minors. In America, currently 2,225 minors are sentenced to life without parole before they turn eighteen. The criminal justice system works on a three strike system, which means you have three minor offenses before you go to jail. Also with the strikes, you are judged on if your crime was of passion or pre-meditated. In the past the issue in judging each situation was that sometimes “children” or minors were charged as adults, due to mandatory minimum sentencing. This is no longer the issue because in 2012, the Supreme Court case (Miller v. Alabama) found mandatory minimum sentencing unconstitutional under the 8th amendment, (which bans cruel and unusual punishments). The problem now is what the Supreme Court forgot to address in there ruling; does this ruling apply to the roughly three hundred adults serving life without parole that were sentenced as juveniles. Adolfo Davis is the leading case that is addressing
many aspects of juveniles sentenced too life without parole. Problem 1 A brief summary of his life, Adolfo Davis was born in 1976 in the state of Chicago. Growing up he never really had anybody to truly raise him because his mother was crack/cocaine addict and his father abandoned his family shortly after he was born. The only place that was the least bit stable in comparison was his grandma’s house which, was already overflowing with other relatives. By the time he was six he was already buying his own food or not eating at all. He acquired little bits of money and food by pumping gas for tips, collecting cans, and shoplifting. When he was ten years old he was sent to juvenile jail for pulling food stamps and 75 cents from a girl hand. By the age of twelve he had joined a gang called the “Gangster Disciples”. Then in 1990 at age of fourteen, he and two other members of his gang robbed a rival drug house. Inevitably during the robbery, a fire fight broke out between the two gangs in the house. Adolfo’s fellow gang members ended up shooting killing the two rival gang members that occupied the house. At the age of fifteen he was sentenced to life without parole, which was the mandatory minimum sentence in Illinois at the time of his arrest. Adolfo never actually fired his gun during the robbery and in due was charged as an accomplice. Adolfo is now thirty-eight years old, he has spent the past twenty-fours years in prison due to his mandatory minimum sentence.
In the of case Miller v.
Alabama, Even Miller the petitioner was fourteen at the of his crime. Miller and a friend were drinking and smoking marijuana with a fifty-three-year-old named Canon; Canon being a neighbor of Miller’s. While they were drinking and smoking a fight broke out between the two boys and Canon. The two boys then proceeded to beat up Canon and set fire to his trailer while he was still knocked out in it. Miller was convicted of capital murder and tried as an adult in court. He received the mandatory minimum sentence to life without parole. Miller tried to appeal his case too both the Alabama State Court and the Alabama Supreme court. He argued that that mandatory life without parole t but upheld the
sentence.
Miller than appealed to the United States Supreme Court; they granted certiorari which, in simple terms is a order in which a higher court reviews a ruling that a lower court has made.
Due the Miller v. Alabmas rulling