Parole granted to inmate who was key in juvenile life debate

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By REBECCA SANTANA

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A Louisiana parole board granted parole on Wednesday to Henry Montgomery, whose Supreme Court case was instrumental in extending the possibility of freedom to hundreds of people sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole when they were juveniles.

Montgomery, 75, was convicted in the 1963 killing of East Baton Rouge sheriff’s deputy Charles Hurt, who caught him skipping school. Montgomery was 17 at the time. He was initially sentenced to death but the state’s Supreme Court threw out his conviction in 1966, saying he didn’t get a fair trial. The case was retried, Montgomery convicted again but this time sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He served decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory sentencing of life without parole for juvenile offenders was “cruel and unusual” punishment. But it didn’t settle the question of whether that decision applied retroactively or only to cases going forward.

In 2016, the Supreme Court settled the matter when it took up Montgomery’s case and extended their decision on such sentences to people already in prison.



FILE - In this February 1964 photo, Henry Montgomery, flanked by two deputies, awaits the verdict in his trial for the murder of Deputy Sheriff Charles H. Hurt in Louisiana. On Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021, a Louisiana parole board votes for the third time whether to grant Montgomery parole. Montgomery's supporters say he's fully reformed and deserves to be freed. (John Boss/The Advocate via AP, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/crime-louisiana-montgomery-henry-montgomery-f74f4e7351b3d72bd1ce1685279c9727

[marble falls]

1. Life without parole is a chickenshit version of the death penalty.

[jimfields33]

2. It's a hard dilemma

The person this guy murdered essentially got his life taken.

[marble falls]

5. There is no justice for the victims or their families. The only justice is for society and ...

... and the accused. If the purpose of incarceration is to punish and rehabilitate, this prisoner deserves to be freed.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. It took Louisiana 5 years to obey a 2016 Supreme Court decision? Do I have that right?

How is that possible?

[ancianita]

4. If I read it right, LA scheduled a resentencing hearing in 2017, after the SC decision.

Miller was given a resentencing hearing in 2017, however it was not until April 2021 that a verdict had been reached with Evan being resentenced to life without parole.[22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._Alabama

Any review and reform by Congress needs to look at juvenile justice while elections even have lawyers voted into Congress.

[marble falls]

6. Lousiana and the wheels of justice grind exceedingly slow.