Resentencing Michigan's Juveniles Serving Life without Parole: An Analysis of County Decisions

• In Event: Sources of Sentencing Disparity and Predictors of Recidivism

Abstract

In 2012, the United States Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life sentences without the possibility of parole were unconstitutional for juvenile offenders. Montgomery v. Louisiana (2014) applied this decision retroactively, meaning that all juvenile-offenders previously sentenced under the mandatory guidelines needed to be resentenced. The court recommended term-of-year sentences ranging from twenty-five to sixty years, stipulating that a life without parole sentence should be reserved for “rare and irreparably corrupt” offenders. Beyond these guidelines, resentencing decisions have been determined at the state and county level. Using a sample to two hundred juvenile lifers from Michigan, the current paper analyzes resentencing decisions under Montgomery. As Michigan prosecutors have sought a continued life without parole sentences for nearly two-thirds of the states’ cases, disparities in resentencing decisions are analyzed across region and county. Furthermore, disparities in resentencing decisions were analyzed based on offender and crime characteristics.

Author

• Leah Ouellet, Wayne State University