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Page Number: 24.0

20 

MILLER v. ALABAMA 

Opinion of the Court 

dictions  (28  States  and  the  Federal  Government)  make
a  life-without-parole  term  mandatory  for  some  juveniles
convicted of murder in adult court.9  The States argue that
this number precludes our holding.

We do not agree; indeed, we think the States’ argument
on this score weaker than the one we rejected in Graham. 
For  starters,  the  cases  here  are  different  from  the  typical 
one in which we have tallied legislative enactments.  Our 
decision  does  not  categorically  bar  a  penalty  for  a  class
of  offenders  or  type  of  crime—as,  for  example,  we  did  in 
Roper  or  Graham.  Instead,  it  mandates  only  that  a  sen-
tencer  follow  a  certain  process—considering  an  offender’s 
youth  and  attendant  characteristics—before  imposing  a 
particular penalty.  And in so requiring, our decision flows
straightforwardly  from  our  precedents:  specifically,  the 
principle  of  Roper,  Graham,  and  our  individualized  sen-
tencing  cases  that  youth  matters  for  purposes  of  meting
out  the  law’s  most  serious  punishments.    When  both  of 
those  circumstances  have  obtained  in  the  past,  we  have
not  scrutinized  or  relied  in  the  same  way  on  legislative 

—————— 

9 The  States  note  that  26  States  and  the  Federal  Government  make 
life  without  parole  the  mandatory  (or  mandatory  minimum)  punish-
ment for some form of murder, and would apply the relevant provision
to  14-year-olds  (with  many  applying  it  to  even  younger  defendants).
See Alabama Brief 17–18.  In addition, life without parole is mandatory
for older juveniles in Louisiana (age 15 and up) and Texas (age 17).  See 
La.  Child.  Code  Ann.,  Arts.  857(A),  (B)  (West  Supp.  2012);  La.  Rev.
Stat. Ann. §§14:30(C), 14:30.1(B) (West Supp. 2012); Tex. Family Code
Ann.  §§51.02(2)(A),  54.02(a)(2)(A)  (West  Supp.  2011);  Tex.  Penal  Code
Ann. §12.31(a) (West 2011).  In many of these jurisdictions, life without 
parole  is  the  mandatory  punishment  only  for  aggravated  forms  of
murder.  That distinction makes no difference to our analysis.  We have 
consistently  held  that  limiting  a  mandatory  death  penalty  law  to
particular kinds of murder cannot cure the law’s “constitutional vice” of
disregarding  the  “circumstances  of  the  particular  offense  and  the 
character  and  propensities  of  the  offender.”    Roberts  v. Louisiana,  428 
U. S.  325,  333  (1976)  (plurality  opinion);  see  Sumner  v.  Shuman,  483 
U. S. 66 (1987).  The same analysis applies here, for the same reasons.