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2 

MILLER v. ALABAMA 

the Eighth Amendment. 

Syllabus 

Held: The  Eighth  Amendment  forbids  a  sentencing  scheme  that  man-
dates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile homicide 
offenders.  Pp. 6−27. 

(a) The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual pun-
ishment  “guarantees  individuals  the  right  not  to  be  subjected  to  ex-
cessive sanctions.”  Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 560.  That right
“flows  from  the  basic  ‘precept  of  justice  that  punishment  for  crime
should be graduated and proportioned’ ” to both the offender and the 
offense.  Ibid. 

Two strands of precedent reflecting the concern with proportionate
punishment  come  together  here.    The  first  has  adopted  categorical 
bans  on  sentencing  practices  based  on  mismatches  between  the  cul-
pability of a class of offenders and the severity of a penalty.  See, e.g., 
Kennedy  v.  Louisiana,  554  U. S.  407.    Several  cases  in  this  group 
have  specially  focused  on  juvenile  offenders,  because  of  their  lesser
culpability.  Thus,  Roper  v.  Simmons  held  that  the  Eighth  Amend-
ment  bars  capital  punishment  for  children,  and  Graham  v.  Florida, 
560 U. S. ___, concluded that the Amendment prohibits a sentence of
life without the possibility of parole for a juvenile convicted of a non-
homicide offense.  Graham further likened life without parole for ju-
veniles  to  the  death  penalty,  thereby  evoking  a  second  line  of  cases.
In those decisions, this Court has required sentencing authorities to
consider  the  characteristics  of  a  defendant  and  the  details  of  his  of-
fense  before  sentencing  him  to  death.    See,  e.g.,  Woodson  v.  North 
Carolina,  428  U. S.  280  (plurality  opinion).    Here,  the  confluence  of 
these  two  lines  of  precedent  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  mandatory
life without parole for juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment. 

As to the first set of cases: Roper and Graham establish that chil-
dren are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purpos-
es.  Their “ ‘lack of maturity’ ” and “ ‘underdeveloped sense of respon-
sibility’ ”  lead  to  recklessness,  impulsivity,  and  heedless  risk-taking. 
Roper, 543 U. S., at 569.  They “are more vulnerable . . . to negative
influences  and  outside  pressures,”  including  from  their  family  and
peers;  they  have  limited  “contro[l]  over  their  own  environment”  and
lack the ability to extricate themselves from horrific, crime-producing
settings. 
Ibid.    And  because  a  child’s  character  is  not  as  “well 
formed”  as  an  adult’s,  his  traits  are  “less  fixed”  and  his  actions  are 
less likely to  be “evidence of irretrievabl[e] deprav[ity].”  Id., at 570. 
Roper  and  Graham  emphasized  that  the  distinctive  attributes  of
youth diminish the penological justifications for imposing the harsh-
est  sentences  on  juvenile  offenders,  even  when  they  commit  terrible
crimes.
  While  Graham’s  flat  ban  on  life  without  parole  was  for  nonhomi-