This report was undertaken in response to litigation and legislation against the use of life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Following several challenges in state supreme courts, interest in the issue has only grown since the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases challenging life-without-parole-sentences for juvenile offenders on Eighth Amendment grounds. Recent years have also witnessed the introduction, in several states, of legislation prohibiting the practice. California’s experience with such legislation is typical. California Misled In 2007, State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill to radically alter the sentence …
On November 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. In preparation for oral arguments, JLWOP: Faces & Cases will be an on-going series on The Foundry that will tell real stories about juvenile offenders who are currently serving LWOP sentences. Life without parole for the very worst juvenile offenders is reasonable, constitutional, and (appropriately) rare. In response to the Western world’s worst juvenile crime problem, U.S. legislators have enacted commonsense measures to protect their citizens and hold these …
In a stunning display of political cowardice, the Obama administration has decided not to seek specific congressional authorization for a prolonged detention statute for Guantanamo Bay detainees deemed too dangerous to set free. It’s the latest troubling flip flop by the president, an utter abdication of the lofty promises he made during his much-heralded National Archives Speech just this May. This decision not only weakens U.S. detention policy, it will regrettably serve as an invitation to the courts to expand their role in national-security affairs — an area that is …
According to an AP story today reprinted in the Miami Herald, European Union countries are likely to take in several dozen Guantanamo Bay detainees. Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina spoke for the 27-nation bloc of interior ministers saying that it would be up to each individual government to decide whether to participate. This is welcome news, if it comes to pass. It is also one piece of a broader strategy to close the facility that both the Bush & Obama administrations’ have been working on for some time.
Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech to the National Association of Attorney’s General this week. In that speech, he renewed the Justice Department’s support for the Adam Walsh Act. The Adam Walsh Act—passed by a wide margin in Congress—requires some convicted sex offenders to register with local authorities. So far, so good, right? One problem: to date, Eric Holder’s Department of Justice 2010 budget gives $0 to implementation of the Adam Walsh Act, and $0 to the SMART Office which implements the Act. There is more to this than …
According to various news outlets, including the Washington Post, al-Marri (also known as Abdulkareen A. Almuslam), the last remaining unlawful enemy combatant in the United States, is about to be indicted in federal district court in the Central District of Illinois. The news stories indicated that he will be charged with, among other things, material support for terrorism. This is a significant development, and a clear break from the Bush administration’s policy with respect to al-Marri. As readers of this blog are well aware, the Supreme Court had taken up …
In a controversial 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that the petitioners detained in Guantanamo Bay have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. The court also determined that the Detainee Treatment Act’s procedures for reviewing the detainees’ status was not an adequate and effective substitute for the habeas writ, and that section 7 of the Military Commissions Act is an unconstitutional suspension of the writ. (Read the decision.) According to Kennedy, the writ may be suspended only when public safety requires it in …
