Brace yourself.
Kavanaugh is right. Here's why:
In Miller v. Alabama, it was a mandatory sentence. There was no leeway or ability for the judge to consider any mitigating circumstances such as their age. (They were 14 at the time.)
That is why that sentence was overturned.
In Montgomery v. Louisiana, it was a little different. Originally, Montgomery was sentenced to death. He was 17 at the time he killed a Deputy Sheriff, which was capital murder, which was an automatic death sentence.
Surprisingly, the Louisiana Supreme Court vacated that sentence because they found that prejudice had tainted the trial, so they retried it and he was found guilty again without capital punishment.
That was it for Montgomery who is now 69 years old until the Miller case. But lets face it, it's not like Montgomery was a real 'kid' in every since of the word. He was a 17 year old that intentionally killed a cop.
What's more, that article lies completely when it says:
Kavanaugh claimed,
which actually isn’t true at all. (As Slate’s
Mark Joseph Stern notes, the landmark
Miller v. Alabama and
Montgomery v. Louisiana decisions determined, respectively, that juvenile life without parole violate the 8th Amendment and that sentences imposed at a judge’s discretion are generally unconstitutional.)
That is a patent lie. Montgomery type cases have been decided in many different ways in many different courts. Kavanaugh noted this and he is correct. From the official SCOTUS files:
In the wake of
Miller, the question has arisen whether its holding is retroactive to juvenile offenders whose convictions and sentences were final when
Miller was decided.
Courts have reached different conclusions on this point. Compare,
e.g., Martin v. Symmes, 782 F.3d 939, 943 (C.A.8 2015);
Johnson v. Ponton, 780 F.3d 219, 224-226 (C.A.4 2015);
Chambers v. State, 831 N.W.2d 311, 331 (Minn.2013); and
State v. Tate, 2012-2763, p. 17 (La. 11/5/13), 130 So.3d 829, 841, with
Diatchenko v. District Attorney for Suffolk Dist., 466 Mass. 655, 661-667, 1 N.E.3d 270, 278-282 (2013);
Aiken v. Byars, 410 S.C. 534, 548, 765 S.E.2d 572, 578 (2014);
State v. Mares, 2014 WY 126, ¶¶ 47-63, 335 P.3d 487, 504-508; and
People v. Davis, 2014 IL 115595, ¶ 41, 379 Ill.Dec. 381, 6 N.E.3d 709, 722. Certiorari was granted in this case to resolve the question.
What all of that means is simply this: Miller was decided unconstitutional because the kids were 14 years old AND there was mandatory sentencing that didn't allow the judge to consider any mitigating factors during sentencing at all.
Montgomery doesn't qualify though because not only was his original mandatory sentence overturned and retried, but his final sentence actually took into consideration the mitigating factor of his age at the time and still decided on life without parole. The only reason the case was ever heard again is because of the Miller case, which is about as far different from Montgomery's as you can get.
So what you have now are people who were considered juveniles who basically weren't in the grand scheme of things that already have had all of their appeals heard and shot down and have already had any mitigating factors in their cases heard, all jumping on the Miller bandwagon trying to get out of jail.
I'm siding with Kavanaugh on this one. He made the right call.
