Jones v. Mississippi

Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana do not require a sentencer to make a finding that a defendant under the age of eighteen is permanently incorrigible before imposing a sentence of life without parole.

Petitioner was sentenced by a Mississippi trial judge to life without parole for a homicide Petitioner committed when he was fifteen years old.  The judge concluded that Petitioner’s crime warranted the sentence.  Petitioner appealed and argued that a sentencer imposing a life-without-parole sentence must make a separate factual finding or an on-the-record explanation which implicitly finds “that the defendant is permanently incorrigible.”  The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected Petitioner’s argument.  The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed, holding that the sentencer is not required to make a finding—neither explicit nor implicit—that a defendant under the age of eighteen is permanently incorrigible before imposing a sentence of life-without-parole.  Under Miller v. Alabama, 567 U. S. 460 (2012), an individual under age eighteen may be sentenced to life without parole so long as the sentence is “not mandatory” and the sentencer “has discretion to impose a lesser punishment.”  The Court reasoned that Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U. S. 190 (2016), which applied Miller retroactively, expressly rejected the requirement of finding an underage defendant permanently incorrigible.  577 U. S., at 211.  Therefore, Petitioner’s sentencing judge was not required to find him permanently incorrigible before imposing his sentence.  AFFIRMED.