USSG Requests Hold on Federal JLWOP Case

United States v. Briones, No. 19-720, is a federal case regarding what finding needs to be made before an under-18 murderer can be sentenced to life without parole. On Monday, the Supreme Court took up a Mississippi case raising the same question, as noted in this post. Yesterday the Solicitor General filed a letter with the Court asking for its case to be put on hold pending a decision in the Mississippi case.

On February 26, 2020, this Court dismissed the petition for a writ of certiorari in Malvo, pursuant to a stipulation of dismissal filed by the parties in that case. On March 9, 2020, the Court granted the petition for a writ of certiorari in Jones v. Mississippi, No. 18-1259, which presents the question “[w]hether the Eighth Amendment requires the sentencing authority to make a finding that a juvenile is permanently incorrigible before imposing a sentence of life without parole.” Pet. at i, Jones, supra (No. 18-1259). That question, like the question presented in the government’s petition for a writ of certiorari in this case, concerns the proper scope of this Court’s decision in Miller. Accordingly, the Court should hold the petition in this case pending its decision in Jones and then dispose of the petition as appropriate in light of that decision.