Miller V. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455: Supreme Court Case

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In the case of Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 - Supreme Court 2012, the issue presented before the court was under the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment is it cruel and usual punishment to sentence a fourteen-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Kuntrell Jackson, Derrick Shields, and Travis Booker discussed a plan to rob the Movie Magic video store in the evening on November 18, 1999. It is alleged that once the time had come to rob the movie store the defendants were made aware that Derrick Shields was, in fact, carrying a .410 gauge sawed-off shotgun in his coat sleeve. Upon arriving at the video store, Booker and Shields went inside and Jackson stayed outside the door, as a look out. Once inside, the duo began demanding the video clerk Laurie Troup give them money; when Troup failed to comply after being instructed five-six times Shields shot Troup in her face after she said she was going to call the police. At this time, Jackson had made his way into the store prior to Troup being shot, but while the robbery was still in progress. It was after Troup was shot that the trio fled the scene empty handed.
The juveniles were apprehended and subsequently charged with the murder of Laurie Troup. Jackson had been convicted of both capital murder and aggravated robbery. However, when Jackson was sentenced, he was sentenced to life in prison on the capital murder conviction, but he was not sentenced on the robbery conviction. At the time the crime was committed Jackson had been fourteen years old. At the time of Jackson’s conviction, Arkansas law Ark.Code Ann. § 9-27-318(c)(2) (1998) allowed for certain juvenile crimes to be tried in adult court under the prosecutor’s discretion. In the case of Evan Miller, he too was fourteen when he committed the crime of capital murder during the course of arson alongside his codefendant Colby Smith on July 15, 2003. Evan Miller and Colby Smith on the night of July 15, 2003, the duo killed Miller’s neighbor by violently beating Cole Cannon with a baseball bat and setting Cannon’s trailer on fire after they beat and robbed him. Prior to the death of Cannon, Cannon had come to Miller’s trailer, where he stayed with his mother asking for something to eat, as he had burned up his food. While Cannon was waiting for Miller’s mother to fix spaghetti, Miller and Smith snuck off and went to Cannon’s trailer looking for drugs but did not find any; so they then returned to
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Alabama and Jackson v. State, both of the juveniles involved were fourteen years old at the time of their offenses. The states of Alabama and Arkansas both had given the prosecutors the right to charge the juveniles as adults. As a result of the felonious crimes, they were then charged accordingly and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Each juvenile subsequently appealed their convictions. Also, in both cases the mandatory minimum for the crimes when tried as an adult required that the courts sentence them to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court respectively affirmed in their rulings of both Miller and Jackson on their appeals that their sentences would remain life imprisonment without the possibility of

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