Cite as 2013 Ark. 175
In recapping its analysis, the Court wrote as follows:
Mandatory life without parole for a juvenile precludes consideration of his chronological age and its hallmark features—among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences. It prevents taking into account the family and home environment that surrounds him—and from which he cannot usually extricate himself—no matter how brutal or dysfunctional. It neglects the circumstances of the homicide offense, including the extent of his participation in the conduct and the way familial and peer pressures may have affected him. Indeed, it ignores that he might have been charged and convicted of a lesser offense if not for incompetencies associated with youth—for example, his inability to deal with police officers or prosecutors (including on a plea agreement) or his incapacity to assist his own attorneys. And finally, this mandatory punishment disregards the possibility of rehabilitation even when the circumstances most suggest it.
Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2468 (citations omitted). In Jackson's particular case, the Court observed that Jackson's conviction was based on an "aiding-and-abetting theory" and that "his age could well have affected his calculation of the risk" posed by his friend's possession of a weapon. Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2468. The Court also noted "Jackson’s family background and immersion in violence." Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2468. The Court concluded that the "Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders," because by "making youth (and all that accompanies it) irrelevant to imposition of that harshest prison sentence, such a scheme poses too great a risk of disproportionate punishment." Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2469.
The Court observed that given "children's diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change, we think appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon." Id. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2469. Nevertheless, the Court did "not foreclose a sentencer's ability to make that judgment in homicide cases," but it did "require it to take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel
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