Louisville Courier Journal Editorial Requests A "Measure Of Decency" And We Agree.

Measure of decency
The Courier-Journal Editorial Board

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that it is unconstitutional for juveniles convicted of crimes not involving homicide to be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility for parole. The ruling effectively strikes down laws in 37 states and the District of Columbia that allow such sentences.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, rightly called it cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment, to impose sentences that do not offer juvenile offenders “some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.”

Obviously, some juveniles do commit horrible crimes, including murder. And yet, there is merit, as Justice Kennedy found, in an argument advanced by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in its friend of the court brief, that there are “features that distinguish juveniles from adults” — features that, in fact, put youths “at a significant disadvantage in criminal proceedings.” By nature, juveniles are immature; they're often impulsive, and they may easily be led astray. Indeed, where would many adults be had they not received second chances?

There currently are 2,500 inmates, 60 percent of them African Americans, who were juveniles when they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Of these, 129 were convicted of crimes that didn't result in death. The ruling represents the first time the Supreme Court has excluded an entire class of offenders in non-death penalty cases from a particular form of punishment.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. sided with the 6-3 majority, but specified that though he agrees that Terrance Graham's life-without-parole sentence (the specific case before the Court) was unconstitutional, he'd prefer such decisions to be made on a case-by-case basis.

Fellow conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, however, was having none of the business about how standards of decency have evolved since the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. Mr. Graham's punishment, Justice Thomas said, would be considered acceptable by those standards.

The irony of Justice Thomas' rigid position, of course, is that if America's standards and practices had not evolved since the 18th Century, he quite possibly would be a slave. Or, as outgoing Justice John Paul Stevens said in his concurrence, “Knowledge accumulates. We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes.” We can only hope that one day Justice Thomas will.