Detailing some of the impacts and possible echoes of Mass ruling precluding LWOP for those under 21
Last month, as noted in this past post, a split Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Commonwealth v. Mattis, No. SJC-11693 (Mass. Jan. 11, 2024) (available here), ruled that article 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights precluded an LWOP sentence for offenses committed by persons under age 21. This lengthy new Law360 piece, headlined “Mass. Ruling Seen As ‘Sea Change’ In Young Adult Sentencing,” discusses the local and possible national impact of hte rule. Here are excerpts:
[A]dvocates pushing to end sentences of life without parole for so-called emerging adults — those ages 18 through 20 — say they see a possible pathway to nationwide change following a recent ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court finding such sentences unconstitutional.
“This ruling is exceedingly important,” [lawyer Jay] Blitzman said. “Obviously, in Massachusetts, where you have about 200 incarcerated individuals who now have the opportunity to have a parole hearing at least at some point in their life. But it is also incredibly significant in terms of the national landscape.”…
[W]hile state high courts in Washington and Michigan have also recently ended the concept of mandatory life without parole for offenders under 21, those rulings, along with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller, have still left the door open for judges to make a determination at the time of sentencing that a parole opportunity should not be granted. “What Massachusetts did went beyond all that,” Blitzman said. “It pushed the envelope.”…
Advocates for abolishing life without parole for juveniles argue that recent scientific studies have shown that certain brain functions are not fully developed by the age of 18 and that the age of “peak offending” is around 19 to 20 years old. The brain tends to be fully matured and developed by around age 25, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Committing crimes — even violent ones — at that age is not necessarily indicative of a person who will continue to break the law the rest of their life, advocates and researchers say….
Robert Kinscherff, the executive director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Law360 that most 16-year-olds are in a good position cognitively to offer medically informed consent, make reproductive decisions or participate in their own defense at trial. However, the situation changes under “hot cognition,” Kinscherff said. “They remain more impulsive, more reckless, less likely to consider options and more likely to respond to the immediacy of perceived rewards rather than to take a long-term view,” he said. “And they remain vulnerable to peer influence, especially if they are in the physical presence of peers.”…
In the weeks since the Mattis decision, Kinscherff says he has heard from attorneys and advocates around the country who are trying to figure out how to incorporate the landmark ruling and the underlying arguments into their own advocacy….
Martin Healey, chief legal counsel and chief operating officer for the Massachusetts Bar Association, called the Mattis ruling a “sea change.”… “I definitely think it is going to have a wide, sweeping effect,” Healey said. “It’s going to happen incrementally, but surely it will occur, and I think you’ll see various states react to it, some soon and others following suit as the years go on.”
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