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Page Number: 5.0

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

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington,  D. C.  20543,  of  any  typographical  or  other  formal  errors,  in  order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

Nos. 10–9646 and 10–9647 
_________________ 

10–9646 

EVAN MILLER, PETITIONER 
v. 
ALABAMA 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL
 
APPEALS OF ALABAMA
 

10–9647 

KUNTRELL JACKSON, PETITIONER 
v. 
RAY HOBBS, DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS 
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT
 
OF ARKANSAS
 

[June 25, 2012] 

JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 
The two 14-year-old offenders in these cases were convict-
ed  of  murder  and  sentenced  to  life  imprisonment  without 
the  possibility  of  parole.  In  neither  case  did  the  sentenc-
ing  authority  have  any  discretion  to  impose  a  different 
punishment.  State  law  mandated  that  each  juvenile  die 
in prison even if a judge or jury would have thought that 
his youth and its attendant characteristics, along with the 
nature  of  his  crime,  made  a  lesser  sentence  (for  example,
life with the possibility of parole) more appropriate.  Such 
a  scheme  prevents  those  meting  out  punishment  from
considering a juvenile’s “lessened culpability” and greater 
“capacity  for  change,”  Graham  v.  Florida,  560  U. S.  ___,