Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-9646.pdf
Page Number: 27

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

23 

Opinion of the Court 

explained  why  simply  counting  them  would  present  a 
distorted  view.    Most  jurisdictions  authorized  the  death
penalty  or  life  without  parole  for  juveniles  only  through
the  combination  of  two  independent  statutory  provisions. 
One  allowed  the  transfer  of  certain  juvenile  offenders  to
adult  court,  while  another  (often  in  a  far-removed  part  of
the code) set out the penalties for any and all individuals
tried  there.  We  reasoned  that  in  those  circumstances,  it 
was impossible to say whether a legislature had endorsed 
a  given  penalty  for  children  (or  would  do  so  if  presented 
with the choice).  In Thompson, we found that the statutes 
“t[old]  us  that  the  States  consider  15-year-olds  to  be  old 
enough to be tried in criminal court for serious crimes (or
too  old  to  be  dealt  with  effectively  in  juvenile  court), 
but  t[old]  us  nothing  about  the  judgment  these  States
have made regarding the appropriate punishment for such
youthful  offenders.”  487  U. S.,  at  826,  n.  24  (plurality 
opinion) (emphasis deleted); see also id., at 850 (O’Connor,
J.,  concurring  in  judgment);  Roper,  543  U. S.,  at  596,  n. 
(O’Connor,  J.,  dissenting).    And  Graham  echoed  that 
reasoning:  Although  the  confluence  of  state  laws  “ma[de] 
life without parole possible for some juvenile nonhomicide 
offenders,”  it  did  not  “justify  a  judgment”  that  many 
States  actually  “intended  to  subject  such  offenders”  to 
those sentences.  560 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16).12 

All  that  is  just  as  true  here.  Almost  all  jurisdictions
allow  some  juveniles  to  be  tried  in  adult  court  for  some 
—————— 

12 THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE  attempts  to  distinguish  Graham  on  this  point, 
arguing  that  there  “the  extreme  rarity  with  which  the  sentence  in
question  was  imposed  could  suggest  that  legislatures  did  not  really
intend  the  inevitable  result  of  the  laws  they  passed.”    Post,  at  6.  But 
neither  Graham  nor  Thompson  suggested  such  reasoning,  presumably 
because the time frame makes it difficult to comprehend.  Those cases 
considered  what  legislators  intended  when  they  enacted,  at  different
moments,  separate  juvenile-transfer  and  life-without-parole  provi-
sions—by  definition,  before  they  knew  or  could  know  how  many  juve-
nile life-without-parole sentences would result.