explaining that, when read as a whole, “Miller’s requirement of individualized sentencing was limited to instances where a state seeks to impose life in prison without parole eligibility on a juvenile” (emphasis in original)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that, when read as a whole, “Miller’s requirement of individualized sentencing was limited to instances where a state seeks to impose life in prison without parole eligibility on a juvenile” (emphasis in original)
- expert testimony admissible concerning particular juvenile defendant's "capacity for impulse control and reasoned decision-making on the night of the victim's death" because it "did not amount to an opinion that the defendant [or any other fifteen year old] was incapable of forming the intent required for murder in the first or second degree simply by virtue of being fifteen"
- "art. 26 nevertheless 'draw[s] its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,' such that developments in the area of juvenile justice in judicial opinions and legislative actions at the State, Federal, and international levels help to inform our understanding of what art. 26 protects" [citation omitted]
- “we do not read Miller as a whole to indicate that the proportionality principle at the core of the Eighth Amendment 14 January Term, 2017 would bar a mandatory sentence of life with parole eligibility after fifteen years for a juvenile convicted of murder in the second degree”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Spina, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part, with whom Cordy, J., joins). I agree with the opinion of the court except for part l.b, “Due process and art. 30,” ante at 62. As to that section, I dissent for the reasons stated in my dissent in Diatchenko v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 471 Mass. 12, 33-48 (2015).