Limiting the Damage of the Juvenile Sentencing Case I Lost

Five years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Brett Jones, who had challenged his life-without-parole sentence for killing his grandfather just after turning 15. The decision, Jones v. Mississippi, not only weakened sentencing protections for juvenile defendants but also eroded Eighth Amendment restraints against cruel and unusual punishment more broadly. As I pored over the ruling, I felt hopeless about whether I — or anyone — would ever succeed in tempering retributive sentences with compassion and mercy. After all, I’m the lawyer who lost the case.

Prior to Jones, a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings had limited extreme sentences for juveniles. For example, in Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the Court banned the death penalty entirely for people under 18. Then, in Miller v. Alabama in 2012, the Court required sentencing courts to consider youth as a mitigating factor and permitted life without parole only for the rare juvenile whose crime truly reflected “irreparable corruption.” In these cases, the Court recognized immaturity and incomplete brain development make juveniles less culpable for their actions, more capable of redemption, and more deserving of mercy.

No court had found my client, Jones, was irreparably corrupt before sentencing him to die in prison. That seemed to me like an obvious error; it should, I thought, be easy to convince the U.S. Supreme Court that his sentence should be vacated.

However, by the time Jones arrived at the high court, the tide had begun to turn from tempering sentences. Two Trump appointees sat on the high court when it agreed to hear the case; a third, Amy Coney Barrett, ascended to the Court less than two weeks before oral arguments, after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. Ultimately, Barrett and the five other Republican appointees voted against my client in a 6–3 ruling.

Since Jones, the Supreme Court has not only failed to curb extreme sentencing but also rolled back Eighth Amendment protections more broadly. Meanwhile, more than 200,000 people are serving some form of life sentence in the United States.

Fortunately, state supreme courts have stepped into the breach with growing independence and resolve, creating a new jurisprudence of mercy grounded in state constitutional law. The work of these courts provides a hopeful blueprint for mitigating extreme sentences, one state at a time. In the post-Jones world, state courts are finding their own path forward, even as the Supreme Court stagnates and falters.

Within a year of the Jones decision, I, with the state public defender, argued at the Michigan Supreme Court for a rule that would protect young homicide offenders against extreme sentences even after they reached 18. I contended that young adults who commit murder cannot automatically be sentenced to life without parole given the diminished culpability of juveniles for their actions. Rather, the sentencing judge must have the choice to impose a lesser sentence. In the end, the state court agreed.

State supreme courts have the power to create a more merciful sentencing regime because these courts — not the U.S. Supreme Court — have the final word on how to interpret their own constitutions. Every state has its own constitution, and defendants facing state charges have the protection of both state and federal constitutional provisions.

Today, in many parts of the country, state cases provide much greater protection against harsh sentences than U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In addition to the Michigan decision, in 2021, the Washington Supreme Court held that the state constitution prohibits mandatorily sentencing anyone under 21 to life without parole. In 2024, the highest court in Massachusetts went further, holding that life without parole for people under 21 violated the state constitution whether it was mandatory or not.

This trend is not limited to the sentencing of juveniles and young adults. Last month, for example, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court weighed in on the crime of felony murder, which allows prosecutors to charge people for murder for deaths that occur in the course of an underlying felony — think, for example, of a participant in a convenience store robbery being charged with murder because their accomplice unexpectedly shot the clerk. Pennsylvania’s highest court held that a felony-murder defendant cannot receive a mandatory life-without-parole sentence unless they intended the murder to occur.

To be sure, state constitutional protections have limits. Many state courts continue to base state constitutional rules on the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal law, even as state court constitutionalism gains momentum overall. Thus, Jones languishes in Mississippi’s Wilkison County Correctional Facility, still sentenced to life without parole for a crime committed as a juvenile. Rulings from Washington, Michigan, and Massachusetts do not apply to him.

While state constitutional rulings will never substitute for a diminished U.S. Supreme Court, state law has the potential to put an end to the overwhelming majority of excessive sentences. Over 85 percent of the 1.2 million people imprisoned in the United States are incarcerated for state rather than federal crimes — meaning state constitutions apply in the vast majority of extreme sentencing cases.

This is a cause for hope. Ordinary citizens have far more power over the state bench than the federal bench. U.S. Supreme Court justices, like all federal judges, receive lifetime commissions from the president and the Senate, a process insulated from direct democracy. In most states, however, at least some portion of state judges must run for election and reelection. This means that everyday people can change the face of our sentencing regime, and the legal system more broadly. Too often, voters neglect judicial races. By becoming informed and active voters in judicial elections, citizens can bend the law toward mercy and help to end needless cruelty in criminal sentencing.

David M. Shapiro is the executive director of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center.

Suggested Citation: David M. Shapiro, Limiting the Damage of the Juvenile Sentencing Case I Lost, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Apr. 30, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/limiting-damage-juvenile-sentencing-case-i-lost