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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan we establish that Brett Kavanaugh has demonstrated "permanent incorrigibility"?
Being on the Court isn't going to change him. He's the same awful person that he was as a teen rapist.
Brett Kavanaughs Opinion Restoring Juvenile Life Without Parole Is Dishonest and Barbaric
In an appalling 63 decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court effectively reinstated juvenile life without parole by shredding precedents that had sharply limited the sentence in every state. Justice Brett Kavanaughs majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi is one of the most dishonest and cynical decisions in recent memory: While pretending to follow precedent, Kavanaugh tore down judicial restrictions on JLWOP, ensuring that fully rehabilitated individuals who committed their crimes as children will die behind bars. Justice Sonia Sotomayors dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, pulls no punches in its biting rebuke of Kavanaughs duplicity and inhumanity. It doubles as an ominous warning that the conservative majority is more than willing to destroy major precedents while falsely claiming to uphold them.
The Supreme Court strictly curtailed the imposition of juvenile life without parole in two landmark decisions: 2012s Miller v. Alabama and 2016s Montgomery v. Louisiana. In Miller, the court ruled that mandatory sentences of JLWOPthat is, sentences imposed automatically upon convictionviolate the 8th Amendments bar on cruel and unusual punishments. It explained that childrens crimes often reflect transient immaturity; because their brains are not fully developed, young offenders are less culpable than adults and have greater potential for rehabilitation. In Montgomery, the court clarified that discretionary sentences of JLWOPthat is, sentences imposed at the discretion of a judgeare generally unconstitutional, as well. It then applied these rules retroactively, allowing all incarcerated people who were condemned to life without parole as children to contest their sentences. Taken together, Miller and Montgomery held that JLWOP is unconstitutional for all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. And they forbade judges from imposing JLWOP unless they found that the defendants crime reflected irreparable corruption.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/brett-kavanaugh-sonia-sotomayor-juvenile-life-without-parole.html