The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that automatic life sentences without the possibility of parole for 19- and 20-year-old individuals convicted of murder are unconstitutional under state law, reported The Detroit Free Press. The ruling builds off a 2022 decision by the court to ban such sentences for 18-year-olds.
In a 5-2 majority opinion, Justice Elizabeth Welch wrote
automatic sentences of life without parole for 19- and 20-year-olds with murder
convictions violates the Michigan Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual
punishment. Welch noted a 2022 Michigan Supreme Court ruling found similar
sentences unconstitutional for 18-year-olds because late-adolescence cognitive
development can still be taking place.
The ruling issued Thursday applied the interpretation to
sentences of life without parole to 19- and 20-year-olds, who also similarly
could still be experiencing cognitive development, Welch wrote. It also
retroactively applies "to all relevant criminal cases," meaning a
prisoner facing a sentence of life without parole for a murder that took place
when they were 19 or 20 could ask a judge for a new sentence.
"Late adolescents who are 19- or 20-years-old, as a
class, share with 18-year-olds the same mitigating characteristics of
late-adolescent brain development," Welch wrote. She later added a
sentence of life without parole "that does not allow for consideration of
the mitigating factors of youth or the potential for rehabilitation is a
grossly disproportionate punishment in violation."
A sentence of life without parole could still be possible,
but 19- and 20-year-olds convicted of murder will now receive the same right to
a hearing to determine if they can be sentenced to life without parole,
currently in place for those 18 and younger.
Joining Welch in the majority were Justices Megan Cavanagh,
Richard Bernstein, Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas. All five justices in
the majority opinion were nominated by Democrats.
The court's two Republican-nominated justices, Chief Justice
Elizabeth Clement and Justice Brian Zahra, dissented. In the dissent, Clement
argued the severity of a first-degree murder conviction could be met with the
most severe sentence possible.
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