Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-9646.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

2 

MILLER v. ALABAMA 

BREYER, J., concurring 

of  responsibility;  they  are  more  vulnerable  or  susceptible 
to  negative  influences  and  outside  pressures,  including 
peer  pressure;  and  their  characters  are  not  as  well 
formed.”  Id.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  17)  (internal  quotation
marks  omitted).    See  also  ibid.  (“[P]sychology  and  brain
science continue to show fundamental differences between 
juvenile and adult minds” making their actions “less likely 
to  be  evidence  of  ‘irretrievably  depraved  character’  than
are the actions of adults” (quoting Roper v. Simmons, 543 
U. S.  551,  570  (2005)));  ante,  at  8–9.    For  another  thing, 
Graham  recognized  that  lack  of  intent  normally  dimin- 
ishes the “moral culpability” that attaches to the crime in 
question, making those that do not intend to kill “categori-
cally  less  deserving  of  the  most  serious  forms  of  punish-
ment  than  are  murderers.”    560  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at 
18)  (citing  Kennedy  v.  Louisiana,  554  U. S.  407,  434–435 
(2008); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982); Tison v. 
Arizona,  481  U. S.  137  (1987)).    And  we  concluded  that, 
because  of  this  “twice  diminished  moral  culpability,”  the 
Eighth  Amendment  forbids  the  imposition  upon  juveniles 
of a sentence of life without parole for nonhomicide cases. 
Graham, supra, at ___, ___ (slip op., at 18, 32). 

Given  Graham’s  reasoning,  the  kinds  of  homicide  that 
can subject a juvenile offender to life without parole must
exclude instances where the juvenile himself neither kills 
nor intends to kill the victim.  Quite simply, if the juvenile
either  kills  or  intends  to  kill  the  victim,  he  lacks  “twice 
diminished” responsibility.  But where the juvenile neither
kills nor intends to kill, both features emphasized in Gra-
ham  as  extenuating  apply.  The  dissent  itself  here  would 
permit  life  without  parole  for  “juveniles  who  commit  the 
worst  types  of  murder,”  post,  at  7  (opinion  of  ROBERTS, 
C. J.), but that phrase does not readily fit the culpability of
one who did not himself kill or intend to kill. 

I  recognize  that  in  the  context  of  felony-murder  cases, 
the  question  of  intent  is  a  complicated  one.  The  felony-