In 1963, 17-year-old Henry Montgomery shot and killed a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Montgomery was found guilty, and automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole, where he has spent the last five decades of his life. Then, in 2012, the Supreme Court ruledthat life without parole for juvenile offenders is akin to cruel and unusual punishment, and, as such, violates the Eighth Amendment. But for Montgomery and the thousands of other inmates doing life for crimes committed before they were adults, it was too late; the ruling didn't affect cases for adults who'd already been sentenced for crimes they had committed as teenagers or children. Montgomery petitioned the state of Louisiana, arguing that the decision should be retroactive—which would give Montgomery and other's like him a shot at a second chance for life outside of prison walls. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
[For more of this story, written by Kate Wheeling, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...ison-a-second-chance]
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