Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-9646.pdf
Page Number: 61.0

6 

MILLER v. ALABAMA 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

It  is  true  that,  at  least  for  now,  the  Court  apparently
permits  a  trial  judge  to  make  an  individualized  decision
that  a  particular  minor  convicted  of  murder  should  be 
sentenced  to  life  without  parole,  but  do  not  expect  this 
possibility  to  last  very  long.    The  majority  goes  out  of  its
way to express the view that the imposition of a sentence
of  life  without  parole  on  a  “child”  (i.e.,  a  murderer  under 
the age of 18) should be uncommon.  Having held in Gra-
ham  that  a  trial  judge  with  discretionary  sentencing
authority may not impose a sentence of life without parole
on a minor who has committed a nonhomicide offense, the 
Justices  in  the  majority  may  soon  extend  that  holding  to 
minors who commit murder.  We will see. 

What today’s decision shows is that our Eighth Amend­
ment  cases  are  no  longer  tied  to  any  objective  indicia  of
society’s  standards.    Our  Eighth  Amendment  case  law  is 
now  entirely  inward  looking.  After  entirely  disregarding
objective indicia of our society’s standards in Graham, the 
Court now  extrapolates from  Graham.  Future cases may
extrapolate  from  today’s  holding,  and  this  process  may
continue  until  the  majority  brings  sentencing  practices
into  line  with  whatever  the  majority  views  as  truly
evolved standards of decency.

The  Eighth  Amendment  imposes  certain  limits  on  the 

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rejected  what  it  called  the  “outmoded  rehabilitation  model”  for  federal 
criminal  sentencing.    S. Rep.  No.  98–225,  p.  38  (1983).    According  to 
the Report, “almost everyone involved in the criminal justice system now 
doubts  that  rehabilitation  can  be  induced  reliably  in  a  prison  setting, 
and  it  is  now  quite  certain  that  no  one  can  really  detect  whether  or 
when a prisoner is rehabilitated.” Ibid.  The Report also “observed that
the indeterminate-sentencing system had two ‘unjustifi[ed] and ‘shame­
ful’  consequences.  The  first  was  the  great  variation  among  sentences 
imposed  by  different  judges  upon  similarly  situated  offenders.  The 
second  was  uncertainty  as  to  the  time  the  offender  would  spend  in 
prison.  Each was a serious impediment to an evenhanded and effective 
operation  of  the  criminal  justice  system.”  Mistretta,  supra,  at  366 
(quoting S. Rep. No. 98–225, at 38, 65 (citation omitted)).