Written by Andrew Schwartz
Henry Montgomery, a 17-year-old African-American boy from Baton Rouge, Louis. was playing hooky from school when Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Hurt approached him. Hurt, who was assigned to truant patrol, proceeded to frisk the teen. In a panic, Montgomery pulled out a cheap .22 caliber pistol from his coat pocket, pointed it at Hurt, and shot him dead. Montgomery was picked up moments later, convicted, and sentenced to a mandatory life sentence without parole. This all occurred in 1963, and Henry Montgomery, who just turned 63 this past November, has spent the past 52 years of his life behind bars in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, for a murder he committed just 11 days after he turned 17 years of age.
These days, Montgomery lives a simple, yet valuable life as a member of the prison community, coaching the prison boxing team, working in the prison’s silk-screen program, and offering advice to younger inmates. This past Monday, however, Montgomery was thrust into the national spotlight, as the United States Supreme Court reached a decision regarding the fate of Montgomery’s sentence of mandatory life without parole. In a 6-3 ruling, the court affirmed that people who were sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole as juveniles will now have the right to seek parole.
The decision in Montgomery was drawn heavily upon the courts 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama, in which the Court prohibited life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. After Miller ruling, it was still ambiguous whether this new precedent retroactively applied to the 2,000 prisoners – including Henry Montgomery – who have been serving their mandatory life sentences. In an effort to solidify their position and outlaw the mandatory life sentences without parole for good, the Court ruled in Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016) that the judicial precedent established by Miller is a substantive rule that must be applied retroactively. That is, the Court has allowed Henry Montgomery and the 2,000 other prisoners in the United States, being held under this harsh and antiquated rule, to become eligible for parole or receive new sentencing hearings.
In order to fully appreciate this decision by the Supreme Court, one must understand the crucial back-story of this ruling: which is the fact that up until a decade ago, children in the United States could be convicted of life without parole and even sentenced to death. This case ingrains the idea that the practice of convicting children to mandatory life sentences without parole is no longer acceptable, and that is why the Court has ruled that Montgomery be being applied retroactively. It is worth noting how substantial this is for our society. The fact that our justice system was once able to sentence children—people younger than myself and all my peer—to life in prison without parole or even sentence them to death is thoroughly unnerving. With the culmination of rulings in Roper, Miller, and finally, Montgomery our society has put its foot down to such brutal practices. Although it has become a common American pastime to wallow in the inadequacies of our legal and political system (given how easy it can often be), this ruling has allowed me to restore even the slightest spark of faith in our clearly unjust legal system.
While this decision marks a solid step in an effort to mitigate our clearly inadequate and unjust criminal justice system, it is tough to remain entirely optimistic. First of all, though Montgomery has allowed those previously sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole as juveniles to seek parole, it does not outlaw life sentences without parole for minors as a whole, regardless of if they were mandatory or not. Though the Court didn’t hold that such a sentence was never permitted, the majority opinion delivered by Justice Elena Kagan stated, “We think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.” While the Court is confident in the legacy of their decision, I can’t help but imagine the ways judges and prosecutors will find ways to circumvent this new precedent. As a result, the United States should outlaw life sentences without parole for children altogether, whether mandatory or not.
Additionally, I find it difficult to look at this court ruling and not question why Congress hasn’t fixed this problem decades ago. The Supreme Court has often been the greatest agent of change with regard to implementing or drastically changing outdated American laws, which alone can be all too rare. Of course, some of the most progressive changes to our society have come about in Supreme Court rulings: What would the Civil Rights Movement been without Brown v. Board? How would women’s reproductive rights be protected if not for Roe v. Wade? I am not arguing that the Supreme Court doesn’t have the responsibility to make such decisions. I am simply arguing that they shouldn’t have to take on such a responsibility. Because Congress is so dysfunctional and inefficient, often times the only way to implement laws is by means of judicial precedent. Taking the progressive notion of this decision in mind, I believe that Congress must take it upon itself to end juvenile life sentences without parole unconditionally, eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing laws for petty drug charges, and bring about significant reforms to mend the defective legal system in the U.S.
Guest Writer