Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-9646.pdf
Page Number: 45

Cite as:  567 U. S. ____ (2012) 

9 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

prescribing  appropriate  punishment  for  crime. 
  The 
Court’s  analysis  focuses  on  the  mandatory  nature  of  the 
sentences  in  this  case.  See  ante,  at  11–17.  But  then— 
although  doing  so  is  entirely  unnecessary  to  the  rule  it 
announces—the  Court  states  that  even  when  a  life  with-
out parole sentence is not mandatory, “we think appropri-
ate  occasions  for  sentencing  juveniles  to  this  harshest 
possible penalty will be uncommon.”  Ante, at 17.  Today’s 
holding  may  be  limited  to  mandatory  sentences,  but  the 
Court has already announced that discretionary life with-
out parole for juveniles should be “uncommon”—or, to use
a common synonym, “unusual.” 

Indeed,  the  Court’s  gratuitous  prediction  appears  to  be
nothing  other  than  an  invitation  to  overturn  life  without
parole  sentences  imposed  by  juries  and  trial  judges.    If 
that  invitation  is  widely  accepted  and  such  sentences  for
juvenile  offenders  do  in  fact  become  “uncommon,”  the 
Court will have bootstrapped its way to declaring that the 
Eighth Amendment absolutely prohibits them.

This  process  has  no  discernible  end  point—or  at  least
none  consistent  with  our  Nation’s  legal  traditions.    Roper
and  Graham  attempted  to  limit  their  reasoning  to  the
circumstances they addressed—Roper to the death penalty, 
and  Graham  to  nonhomicide  crimes.  Having  cast  aside
those limits, the Court cannot now offer a credible substi-
tute,  and  does  not  even  try.    After  all,  the  Court  tells  us, 
“none  of  what  [Graham]  said  about  children  . . .  is  crime- 
specific.”  Ante,  at  10.  The  principle  behind  today’s  deci-
sion seems to be only that because juveniles are different 
from adults, they must be sentenced differently.  See ante, 
at  14–17.  There  is  no  clear  reason  that  principle  would
not  bar  all  mandatory  sentences  for  juveniles,  or  any 
juvenile  sentence  as  harsh  as  what  a  similarly  situated
adult  would  receive.    Unless  confined,  the  only  stopping
point  for  the  Court’s  analysis  would  be  never  permitting 
juvenile offenders to be tried as adults.  Learning that an