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Evan Miller endured years of abuse so severe that he tried to kill himself 5 times by the time he turned 14. It was at that young age in 2003 that he was arrested for the murder of his mother’s 52 year old neighbor, Cole Cannon, who was also reportedly her drug dealer. On the day Cannon died, he gave Miller and another teenager alcohol and marijuana as they hung out with Cannon in his trailer. A fight broke out and the two boys beat Cannon and then burned down the trailer, leaving Cannon for dead. Evan Miller was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2006.

In 1999, 14 year old Kuntrell Jackson was with two other boys when the group robbed a video store in Blytheville, Arkansas. One of the boys shot and killed the 28 year old female clerk. Jackson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for being an accomplice to the murder.

Evan Miller and Kuntrell Jackson are plaintiffs in two separate cases currently before the Supreme Court, with Attorney Bryan Stevenson arguing in both cases that it is a violation of the 14th amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment to sentence juveniles to life without parole. There is legal precedent in favor of a moratorium on the severe sentences. In 2005 the Court ruled that juveniles could not be sentenced to death. In 2010 the Court decided that life without the possibility of parole was cruel and unusual when applied to cases involving juvenile offenders when no homicide had been committed.

Both rulings relied on medical science that shows developmentally, children and teenagers are not the same as adults. This is reflected in the long list of laws prohibiting younger Americans from engaging in a range of acts deemed to require fully mature cognitive capabilities and impulse control, like voting and drinking alcohol. Juveniles who commit murder are also more likely to come from abusive homes and neighborhoods where they are routinely exposed to violence. The Sentencing Project just released a report on the tragic common backgrounds juvenile offenders share, and the often brutal daily circumstances of their lives in prison.

GUEST: Ashley Nellis, Research Analyst at The Sentencing Project and author of The Lives of Juvenile Lifers: Findings from a National Survey

Visit www.sentencingproject.org for more information and to download the report.