Supreme Court to hear arguments in youth sentencing case

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could create an opportunity for prisoners to challenge their sentences.

The case, Montgomery v. Louisiana, centers on Henry Montgomery, who was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he committed in 1963 at the age of 17.

Montgomery, who is now 69, is challenging the state of Louisiana’s decision to keep him behind bars despite the Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that the Eighth Amendment prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole as a punishment for murder.

The Supreme Court justices are being asked to decide whether that case, known as Miller v. Alabama, retroactively applies to people such as Montgomery who were sentenced to life in prison without parole as a juvenile prior to that decision and whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to decide if the Louisiana Supreme Court correctly refused to apply the case retroactively.   

Montgomery was given a new trial in 1969 but was again found guilty. Though Miller created a new rule, the state and its supporters argue that the rule was procedural only and not a “substantive” rule that applies retroactively, because it only prescribed a sentencing process and did not categorically bar life-without-parole sentences.

In an amicus brief, the Equal Justice Initiative, which advocates for sentencing reform relief, argued Miller is a new substantive rule.

“Miller is no different than the Eighth Amendment precedents on which it relied, which have universally been applied retroactively because the determination that a punishment is cruel and unusual is inexorably a substantive one,” the group wrote in its brief.

The court has set aside 75 minutes for arguments.