Maryland judges can sentence juveniles convicted of murder to life in prison with the chance for parole without first considering the killer’s youth and related circumstances, the state’s second-highest court has ruled. Such individualized considerations are required only before a ...

Tagged with: juvenile justice life sentence Miller v. Alabama Montgomery v. Louisiana

Saying murder victims' loved ones have a right to finality, a Maryland victims’ rights group is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the pending resentencing of a man serving a life-without-parole sentence for committing sniper-style slayings in the Washington area in 2002, when he was a teenager.

Tagged with: Eighth Amendment juvenile lifers lee boyd malvo Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Miller v. Alabama Montgomery v. Louisiana

Maryland has urged a federal judge to dismiss a civil-rights lawsuit claiming the state is unconstitutionally holding more than 200 juvenile offenders who are now adults under de facto sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole because Maryland governors have historically not granted parole to lifers.

Tagged with: cruel and unusual punishment juvenile crime Miller v. Alabama Montgomery v. Louisiana

A Maryland appeals court on Tuesday ordered three first-degree murderers to be resentenced in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that sentencing violent juvenile offenders to life in prison without the opportunity for parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment except in the most heinous cases.

Tagged with: cruel and unusual punishment juvenile crime Miller v. Alabama Montgomery v. Louisiana