Editorials across the country have expressed support for last Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger convicted of homicide are unconstitutional.
Calling the decision “humane” and “wise,” editorial boards from Los Angeles and Seattle to Nebraska and Kansas to Florida and Pennsylvania supported the Court’s determination that, as the New York Times wrote, “both judges and legislators must use care in imposing the harshest penalties on juveniles because their age can render a sentence disproportionate and unconstitutional.”