{"id":3583,"date":"2021-04-30T15:56:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T22:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583"},"modified":"2021-05-06T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T17:21:15","slug":"dumping-a-dishonest-precedent-less-than-honestly-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583","title":{"rendered":"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly — Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Jones<\/em> v. Mississippi<\/em><\/a>, regarding the constitutional requirements to sentence an under-18 murderer to life in prison without parole (LWOP). The majority opinion claims to “carefully follow[] both Miller<\/em> [v. Alabama]<\/em><\/a> and Montgomery<\/em> [v. Louisiana<\/em>]<\/a>.” The dissent claims “the Court guts” both decisions. Neither statement is completely right. Neither could be, given that Montgomery<\/em> contradicts both Miller<\/em> and itself.<\/p>\n

About all that is left of Montgomery<\/em> is its bare holding that Miller<\/em> is retroactive. That holding will soon be essentially moot, as nearly all the murderers who killed before their 18th birthday who qualify for reconsideration under Miller<\/em> will either have had a new decision in their cases (see footnote 6 of Jones<\/em>, last sentence) or have lost their right to seek it by delay. The holding stands like the chimney of a house that burned down, useless but still standing.<\/p>\n

There is a certain poetic justice in Montgomery<\/em> being largely relegated to the dustbin in a less-than-honest decision, as Montgomery<\/em> itself is among the most dishonest decisions in recent Supreme Court history.<\/p>\n

Miller<\/em>‘s Holding and Dicta<\/h5>\n

In its 2012 decision in Miller<\/em> v. Alabama<\/em>, the Supreme Court announced that the Eighth Amendment had sprung yet another new branch and imposed yet another requirement that was completely unknown at the time of its ratification and contrary to the laws of many states at the time of its announcement. “We therefore hold that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment\u2019s prohibition on ‘cruel and unusual punishments.’ ” The word “mandatory” in this context means that the sentencer does not have discretion to impose a lesser punishment such as a term of years or life in prison with<\/em> possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has many times stressed the important difference between the holding<\/em> of a case and comments made along the way in the opinion, known as obiter dicta<\/em>. \u201cIt is to the holdings of our cases, rather than their dicta, that we must attend ….\u201d Kokkonen<\/em> v. Guardian Life Ins. Co<\/em>., 511 U. S. 375, 379 (1994). At every<\/em> point in the Miller<\/em> opinion where it expressly states a holding, it does so in the limited terms of the quote above.<\/p>\n

The critical portion comes on pages 479-480 (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

We therefore hold<\/em> that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders. [Citation.] By making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment. Because that holding is sufficient to decide these cases<\/em>, we do not consider Jackson\u2019s and Miller\u2019s alternative argument that the Eighth Amendment requires a categorical bar on life without parole for juveniles, or at least for those 14 and younger. But<\/em> given all we have said in Roper<\/em>, Graham<\/em>, and this decision about children\u2019s diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon. That is especially so because of the great difficulty we noted in Roper<\/em> and Graham<\/em> of distinguishing at this early age between \u201cthe juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.\u201d Roper<\/em>, 543 U. S., at 573; Graham<\/em>, 560 U. S., at 68. Although we do not foreclose a sentencer\u2019s ability to make that judgment in homicide cases, we require it to take into account how children [sic] are different<\/em>, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notice the word “but” separating the statement of the holding from the comments about uncommonness of life-without-parole (LWOP) sentences for juveniles and the correct observation, quoting an earlier case, that it is difficult to determine if a crime reflects “irreparable corruption.” It is a small word, but meaningful. It would not be there if the two sentences that follow were part and parcel of the statement of the holding that precedes it. “But” signals a shift in meaning, such as a contradiction or an exception to what came before. In this case, it separates the narrow holding of the case from what the Court believes will be the broader practical consequences. This is a perfect example of obiter dicta<\/em>, which is not binding precedent.<\/p>\n

The paragraph concludes with a return to the purely procedural requirement of discretion in sentencing and taking into account the mitigating factor of youth. By the way, all<\/em> of the defendants in this line of cases were adolescents at the time of the crime; not a single one was a child.<\/p>\n

If there were any doubt that the holding of Miller<\/em> only requires discretion, and does not categorically exempt any subset of juvenile murderers from LWOP, that doubt is eliminated beyond genuine dispute on page 483. In this part of the opinion, the majority is answering the charge of the dissent that it did not survey the laws of the various States to determine that the practice being banned is “unusual.” The Court had done so in its earlier precedents in Roper<\/em> v. Simmons<\/em> (2005), exempting juveniles from the death penalty, and Graham<\/em> v. Florida<\/em> (2010), exempting juveniles from LWOP for non-homicide crimes, as well as the cases carving out categorical exemptions from the death penalty. Those categorical exemption cases were different, the Miller<\/em> majority said (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

For starters, the cases here are different from the typical one in which we have tallied legislative enactments. Our decision does not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime<\/strong>\u2014as, for example, we did in Roper<\/em> or Graham<\/em>. Instead, it mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process<\/strong>\u2014considering an offender\u2019s youth and attendant characteristics\u2014before imposing a particular penalty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The boldfaced language is crystal clear, and it anticipates and answers the question decided in Jones<\/em> last week. For practical purposes, it also answers the question decided in Montgomery<\/em> in 2016. So you would think that those cases would be straightforward. Guess again.<\/p>\n

The Teague<\/em> Rule<\/h5>\n

What’s the big deal over the distinction between a “categorical[] bar” and a requirement to “follow a certain process”? That distinction determines whether a new rule applies only to cases still pending on their initial appeal (not subsequent collateral reviews) at the time the rule is announced or whether it goes all the way back to wipe out convictions of any age for any defendant still in custody.<\/p>\n

This is the rule of Teague<\/em> v. Lane.<\/em> I posted a primer<\/a> on it last December. This is the Cliff’s Notes version.<\/p>\n

When a new rule changes what acts can be made criminal, anybody in jail for the no-longer-criminal act is necessarily innocent, and the judgment against him is necessarily wrong. If a person is in jail for burning a flag at a protest, and the Supreme Court decides that flag-burning laws are unconstitutional, then that person is in jail even though he did not violate any valid<\/em> statute. The new rule applies retroactively to let him out.<\/p>\n

The same goes for categorical exemptions from punishment. If a person is sentenced to death for rape, and the Supreme Court decides that only murder can be punished by death (plus, maybe, certain national security crimes), then the rapist is necessarily sentenced to a greater punishment than the maximum for his crime. He must be resentenced to a prison term. (Hopefully a long one.)<\/p>\n

But what about changes in procedure? Are there any new rules of constitutional criminal procedure so essential to a fair trial that we fear there were wholesale convictions of innocent people under the old procedure? Not for a very long time. The criminal procedure revolution of the Warren Court identified and banned the practices that produced wholesale miscarriages of justice, such as requiring indigent and sometimes illiterate defendants to represent themselves in felony cases, going up against a professional prosecutor. The rules created in the 1980s and later are “fine-tuning” by comparison and would change the result in relatively few cases. Going back and retrying every<\/em> case that used a given procedure every time the high court tweaks the rules has a cost greater than the benefit. Since the Teague<\/em> rule was created in 1989, the number of new procedural rules found by the Supreme Court to be so essential as to require retroactive application is exactly zero.<\/p>\n

In practice, the “watershed rule exception,” as it is known, is dead. Retroactivity on collateral review turns on the substantive \/ procedural distinction.<\/p>\n

So under the Teague<\/em> rule, Miller<\/em> would be retroactive to old cases if it “categorically bar[red] a penalty for a class of offenders” but it would not if it “mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process.” Given that Miller<\/em> classified its own<\/em> holding as the latter and not the former in exactly those words, the result seemed obvious.<\/p>\n

The Mendacity of Montgomery<\/em><\/h5>\n

After Miller<\/em> was decided in 2012, Henry Montgomery sought relief from his LWOP sentence from the courts of Louisiana. He had murdered a police officer at a time when Montgomery was 17 and JFK was President. Under the standards of the day, the jury showed him mercy by sparing his life. Most people would have gotten the chair for that. Even so, Montgomery was a long-term resident of Louisiana’s prisons, to be sure.<\/p>\n

The Louisiana courts correctly decided the straightforward retroactivity question. Miller<\/em> created a procedural rule and not a categorical exemption, as it expressly said, so it is not retroactive under Teague<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Montgomery<\/em> opinion goes through an explanation of the Teague<\/em> rule and then observes, “This leads to the question whether Miller<\/em>\u2019s prohibition on mandatory life without parole for juvenile offenders indeed did announce a new substantive rule that, under the Constitution, must be retroactive.” Right, but that is an easy question.<\/p>\n

The Court discusses two precedents that held certain punishments were categorically disproportionate when applied to juveniles, even though they are not when applied to adults. These precedents, it says, were foundational to Miller<\/em>‘s holding. True, but they were used only to established that the Eighth Amendment has different requirements for juveniles. The fact that they established categorical rules does not make every rule that relies on that principle categorical.<\/p>\n

The Court then notes Miller<\/em>‘s requirement that courts take youth into account before deciding on an LWOP sentence. Right, and that is a quintessentially procedural rule. After\u00a0Miller<\/em>, courts are still allowed to reach the same result if they follow the newly mandated procedure. The Montgomery<\/em> opinion then notes Miller<\/em>‘s observations, which follow<\/em> its statement of its holding and are not part of it, about the rarity of cases where such a sentence will be appropriate. The opinion makes no effort to justify a conclusion that obvious dictum<\/em> is actually holding.<\/p>\n

Then comes this bombshell (577 U.S., at 208):<\/p>\n

Miller<\/em>, then, did more than require a sentencer to consider a juvenile offender\u2019s youth before imposing life without parole; it established that the penological justifications for life without parole collapse in light of \u201cthe distinctive attributes of youth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is false. Here is the full sentence from Miller<\/em> (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

“Roper<\/em> and Graham<\/em> emphasized that the distinctive attributes of youth diminish<\/em> the penological justifications for imposing the harshest sentences on juvenile offenders, even when they commit terrible crimes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a big difference between “diminish” and “collapse.” If the penological justifications collapsed<\/em> for juveniles, Miller<\/em> would have banned LWOP for them altogether. It did not. It required the trial judge to take youth into account. That is procedure.<\/p>\n

It gets worse.<\/p>\n

Even if a court considers a child\u2019s [sic] age before sentencing him or her to a lifetime in prison, that sentence still violates the Eighth Amendment for a child [sic] whose crime reflects \u201c\u2018unfortunate yet transient immaturity.\u2019\u201d [Miller<\/em>], at 479 (quoting Roper<\/em>, supra<\/em>, at 573).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Attributing that holding to this passage of Miller <\/em>is false. Miller<\/em> was not stating an Eighth Amendment rule at that point. The full quote in context is earlier in this post under the Miller<\/em> heading. Miller<\/em> was quoting Roper<\/em> for how difficult it is to distinguish “transient immaturity” from “irreparable corruption.” Neither case held that the Eighth Amendment draws a constitutional line at that imperceptible boundary. Quite the contrary, just two sentences earlier Miller<\/em> said expressly that its (procedural) prohibition of mandatory sentencing laws was sufficient to decide the case and stopped there.<\/p>\n

Having falsely stated what Miller<\/em> held, it is then simple for Montgomery <\/em> to evade the Teague<\/em> rule. “As a result, Miller<\/em> announced a substantive rule of constitutional law. Like other substantive rules, Miller<\/em> is retroactive ….”<\/p>\n

How does the Montgomery<\/em> opinion deal with Miller<\/em>‘s express and unequivocal statement that it was not<\/em> creating a categorical exemption. You have to read it to believe this venerable court would actually say this:<\/p>\n

In support of this argument, Louisiana points to Miller<\/em>‘s statement that the decision \u201cdoes not categorically bar a penalty for a class of offenders or type of crime\u2014as, for example, we did in Roper<\/em> or Graham<\/em>. Instead, it mandates only that a sentencer follow a certain process\u2014considering an offender’s youth and attendant characteristics\u2014before imposing a particular penalty.\u201d Miller<\/em>, supra, at 483. Miller<\/em>, it is true, did not bar a punishment for all juvenile offenders, as the Court did in Roper<\/em> or Graham<\/em>. Miller<\/em> did bar life without parole, however, for all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility. For that reason, Miller<\/em> is no less substantive than are Roper<\/em> and Graham<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A child could see how evasive and dishonest this is\u2014an actual child, not a Miller<\/em>\/Montgomery<\/em> adolescent “child.”<\/p>\n

The passage of Miller<\/em> in question does not simply deny creating a particular<\/em> categorical bar. Such a denial would be irrelevant to the dissent’s charge that the majority was refuting, i.e., that precedent required the court to follow the earlier categorical bar cases and survey the practices of the states to determine if the given punishment for the given crime and category of criminals was actually “unusual.” That charge could only be refuted by stating that the rule being created is not a categorical bar of any kind<\/em>. And that<\/em> is exactly what the Miller<\/em> majority said in words that are clear beyond reasonable dispute. Yet the Montgomery<\/em> majority brushes this aside by saying that Miller<\/em> did not bar LWOP for all<\/em> juvenile murderers and repeating the assertion that it barred LWOP for a subset of juvenile murderers despite Miller<\/em>‘s unequivocally contrary statement.<\/p>\n

There was one more hurdle for the Montgomery<\/em> majority to clear. Miller<\/em> did not require that courts make a finding of fact that the crime represented “irreparable corruption” rather than “transient immaturity.” It expressly required only that the sentencer “take into account how\u00a0 [juveniles] are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.” How could a decision says that a given sentence is constitutional if a given fact exists but unconstitutional if the contrary fact exists without requiring anyone to find the fact?<\/p>\n

It can’t, obviously. The categorical bar on executing intellectually disabled people requires a finding of fact on whether the defendant really is intellectually disabled. The same is true for mental competence for execution. The same is true for the minimum age for execution, in the rare cases where age is in dispute. Undeterred, Montgomery<\/em> charges forward (p. 211):<\/p>\n

That Miller<\/em> did not impose a formal factfinding requirement does not leave States free to sentence a child whose crime reflects transient immaturity to life without parole. To the contrary, Miller<\/em> established that this punishment is disproportionate under the Eighth Amendment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, sentencing judges, you don’t have to find whether the “crime reflects transient immaturity” before you impose LWOP, but if you impose it and that “fact” is true, you have violated the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Is this an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, or is it a passage from Alice in Wonderland? This is not how review of judgments works. A judgment is valid unless a reversible error was committed in reaching it. If the trial court finds every fact it needs to find to impose the judgment, and if there is no reversible procedural error in finding the facts, then the judgment is valid and not reversible.<\/p>\n

What Went On Inside the Montgomery<\/em> Court?<\/h5>\n

At some point, the papers of one of the Justices who participated in Montgomery<\/em> will be released to public view, and hopefully we will find out then what on earth was going on to explain this bizarre decision. Until then we can only speculate.<\/p>\n

This is my best hypothesis, which admittedly is speculation pending actual facts. In the latter years of his tenure, Justice Kennedy saw sweeping sentencing changes, especially for juveniles, as a key element of his legacy. He was gung ho for Miller<\/em> and very much wanted to see it applied retroactively. At the same time, though, he was one of the key architects of the Teague<\/em> rule. He did not write Teague<\/em> itself, but he wrote many of the decisions that put flesh on the bones. He did not want to dismantle one part of his legacy to reinforce another part.<\/p>\n

Justice Kennedy cannot actually believe that Montgomery<\/em> is an honest interpretation of Miller<\/em>. He is much too intelligent for that. I can only surmise that he wanted the twin results enough to dissemble on a precedent in order to achieve them. The other four Justices from the Miller<\/em> majority would just as soon give Teague<\/em> the heave-ho, or at least exhume the “watershed rule” exception from its judicial grave, but they needed Justice Kennedy and Chief Justice Roberts for their majority, so they were willing to go along.<\/p>\n

How can we explain Chief Justice Roberts joining an opinion that expands<\/em> an opinion he believed was so wrong that it was not even a plausible interpretation of the Constitution (see Miller<\/em>, 567 U.S., at 493) and did so in a dishonest way that stains the pages of the United States Reports? He also is much too sharp to actually believe the blather that he concurred in. Perhaps he was willing to go along and save the opinion from “bare majority” status in return for the damage control of not changing the Teague<\/em> rule. Perhaps Justice Kennedy wanted that reinforcement, and that gave him an additional reason not to damage Teague<\/em>.<\/p>\n

We don’t know any of that, of course, and we don’t know when we will know.<\/p>\n

On to Jones<\/em> v. Mississippi<\/em><\/h5>\n

That was a long trip through the past for a post that is supposed to be about a new decision, but it was necessary to understand what really happened last week.<\/p>\n

One-third of the Court has changed since Montgomery<\/em>. Justice Gorsuch succeeded Justice Scalia. No major change there on this issue, apparently.<\/p>\n

Justice Kavanaugh succeeded Justice Kennedy. While he generally falls the “moderate” side of the “conservative” Justices among the rankings that label-makers like to play with, he does not appear to have his predecessor’s crusading zeal to release large numbers of criminals into the streets.<\/p>\n

The largest change, in all likelihood, is Justice Barrett succeeding Justice Ginsburg. We have not seen much from her on the Supreme Court yet, and she was not on the Court of Appeals long enough to establish a large track record there, but it is safe to assume that she will be less regularly pro-criminal than her predecessor.<\/p>\n

Part II<\/a> will examine the Jones<\/em> opinions in light of the background presented here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Jones v. Mississippi, regarding the constitutional requirements to sentence an under-18 murderer to life in prison without parole (LWOP). The majority opinion claims to “carefully follow[] both Miller [v. Alabama] and Montgomery [v. Louisiana].” The dissent claims “the Court guts” both decisions. Neither statement is completely right. Neither could be, given that Montgomery contradicts both Miller and itself. About all that is left of Montgomery is its bare holding that Miller is retroactive. That holding will soon be essentially moot, as nearly all the murderers who killed before their 18th birthday who qualify for reconsideration under Miller will either have had a new decision in their cases (see footnote 6 of Jones, last sentence) or have lost their right to seek it by delay. The holding stands like the chimney of a house that burned down, useless but still standing. There is a certain poetic justice in Montgomery being largely relegated to the dustbin in a less-than-honest decision, as Montgomery itself is among the most dishonest decisions in recent Supreme Court history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,49,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-juveniles","category-sentencing","category-u-s-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nDumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly - Part I - Crime & Consequences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly - Part I - Crime & Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Jones v. Mississippi, regarding the constitutional requirements to sentence an under-18 murderer to life in prison without parole (LWOP). The majority opinion claims to “carefully follow[] both Miller [v. Alabama] and Montgomery [v. Louisiana].” The dissent claims “the Court guts” both decisions. Neither statement is completely right. Neither could be, given that Montgomery contradicts both Miller and itself. About all that is left of Montgomery is its bare holding that Miller is retroactive. That holding will soon be essentially moot, as nearly all the murderers who killed before their 18th birthday who qualify for reconsideration under Miller will either have had a new decision in their cases (see footnote 6 of Jones, last sentence) or have lost their right to seek it by delay. The holding stands like the chimney of a house that burned down, useless but still standing. There is a certain poetic justice in Montgomery being largely relegated to the dustbin in a less-than-honest decision, as Montgomery itself is among the most dishonest decisions in recent Supreme Court history.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Crime & Consequences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CriminalJusticeLegalFoundation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-30T22:56:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-06T17:21:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/FB_DefaultLJ.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kent Scheidegger\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kent Scheidegger\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"16 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583\",\"name\":\"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly - Part I - Crime & Consequences\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-04-30T22:56:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-06T17:21:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1ab62da9ed4ddd3a58d70c77eef37356\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly — Part I\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/\",\"name\":\"Crime & Consequences\",\"description\":\"Crime and criminal law\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1ab62da9ed4ddd3a58d70c77eef37356\",\"name\":\"Kent Scheidegger\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cjlf.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly - Part I - Crime & Consequences","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=3583","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly - Part I - Crime & Consequences","og_description":"Last week the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Jones v. Mississippi, regarding the constitutional requirements to sentence an under-18 murderer to life in prison without parole (LWOP). The majority opinion claims to “carefully follow[] both Miller [v. Alabama] and Montgomery [v. Louisiana].” The dissent claims “the Court guts” both decisions. Neither statement is completely right. Neither could be, given that Montgomery contradicts both Miller and itself. About all that is left of Montgomery is its bare holding that Miller is retroactive. That holding will soon be essentially moot, as nearly all the murderers who killed before their 18th birthday who qualify for reconsideration under Miller will either have had a new decision in their cases (see footnote 6 of Jones, last sentence) or have lost their right to seek it by delay. The holding stands like the chimney of a house that burned down, useless but still standing. 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