This recent AP piece, headlined "Cases challenge no-parole terms for young adult killers," reports on various efforts in various jurisdictions to extend limits on LWOP sentences for young persons older than 18. Here are excerpts:
U.S. Supreme Court rulings and state laws in recent years have limited or banned the use of life sentences without the possibility of parole for people who commit crimes as juveniles because of the potential for change. Now, research showing that the brain continues to develop after 18 is prompting some states to examine whether to extend such protections to young adults...
Washington state’s high court earlier this year abolished automatic life without parole sentences given to people for murders committed as 18- to 20-year-olds. Courts in Washington can still sentence young adult offenders to life with no chance at parole, but only after first considering whether their youth justifies a lesser punishment.
A new Washington, D.C., law allows those under the age of 25 at the time of their crime to apply for a new sentence after 15 years, said Josh Rovner, who works on juvenile justice issues for The Sentencing Project. And bills introduced in Connecticut and Illinois would get rid of life without parole sentences for people who commit crimes as young adults, Rovner said....
Boston’s progressive top prosecutor, Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins, agrees there needs to be a change — though not as drastic as defense attorneys would like. Even so, Rollins took the unusual step this year of signing a brief in the case against Robinson to push for an end to mandatory life without parole for those who committed killings between 18 and 20.
She argues in court documents that the studies the defense points to are flawed, and that while it is “undisputed” that the brain continues to develop into early adulthood, “there is an absence of direct evidence linking these anatomical changes to specific behaviors.” Rollins said she will urge the Supreme Judicial Court to follow Washington State and rule that those young adults must get a special sentencing hearing to consider their youth before punishments can be handed down. She said they should be ordered to die in prison in only “extremely egregious” circumstances — if the judge finds them to be “irretrievably depraved.”
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