95 teenagers sentenced to life in NC prisons since 1994. Here’s where things stand.

Fewer young criminal defendants are getting sentenced to life in North Carolina prisons due to a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions spread over years.

Over years, justices placed significant limits on punishments permitted for people convicted of crimes committed that occurred while they were minors.

“Our decisions rested not only on common sense — on what ‘any parent knows’ — but on science and social science as well,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a key 2012 Supreme Court opinion limiting punishment for minors.

Prior to that ruling, a 2005 decision known as Roper v. Simmons banned death penalty sentences for defendants convicted of crimes that took place before they turned 18, calling it cruel and unusual punishment.

In Graham v. Florida, the Supreme Court forbade in 2010 the use of life without parole sentences for youths convicted of anything except homicides. A state isn’t required to release all young offenders from prison, but there needs to be a realistic opportunity for release, a majority of justices agreed.

Those two cases established “that children are constitutionally different from adults for the purposes of sentencing,” according to the often-cited 2012 Supreme Court opinion in Miller v. Alabama, which banned automatic life sentences for minors convicted of murder.

The decision recognized that juveniles’ lack of maturity leads to recklessness and risk taking, and they are more vulnerable to others’ influences. The decision also pointed out that juveniles sentenced to life terms end up spending more time in prison than adults, even though they were likely less culpable due to their age.

It also concluded that an automatic sentence of life in prison for a homicide is cruel and unusual punishment for juveniles. The court didn’t ban discretionary life-in-prison sentences for juveniles, but said they must be uncommon and imposed only after judges consider defendants’ ages.

In 2021, Gov. Roy Cooper formed Juvenile Sentence Review Board to review the cases of young defendants sentenced to life without parole here. The board can recommended clemency or reduced sentences, though some activists say North Carolina has been too slow to release deserving applicants.

In North Carolina, 95 young defendants were sentenced to life without parole from 1994 to 2022, according to a study led by Ben Finholt, director of the Just Sentencing Project at Duke University’s law school.

As the law changed, judges have reheard some of cases to ensure the sentences are constitutional.

Here are where the cases stand, according to Finholt:

▪ Forty-five people sentenced to life with parole were made eligible for parole after 25 to 40 years of incarceration.

▪ Eight received a new plea offer for less than first-degree murder.

▪ Two received clemency from Gov. Roy Cooper.

▪ Four obtained eligibility for parole but are seeking earlier release under 2022 North Carolina Supreme Court rulings.

▪ Five are appealing their conviction. Eight successful at appeals seek plea deals for charge ess than first-degree murder.

▪ Thirty are waiting for resentencing hearings.

▪ One is serving a life sentence and has no current litigation.

Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.