Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2014

Publication Title

Criminal Law Bulletin

Keywords

Roper v. Simmons, LWOP, death sentence, juvenile offenders

Abstract

The United States juvenile death penalty was abolished in 2005 when the Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons, found this punishment to be cruel and unusual and in violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.1 This decision was the final step in ending the death sentence for those under the age of eighteen. While this sentence is no longer an option for retributively-inclined states, many serious youthful offenders continue to meet similar, and in some ways, comparably difficult fates. These fates include the wholesale transfer of serious youthful offenders to the criminal courts2 and the subsequent incarceration of tens of thousands of troubled adolescents;3 andfor a smaller subset of this group, their imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).

Publication Status

1

Version

Postprint

Download

Share

COinS