In Jones v. Mississippi The United States Supreme Court, has narrowed, practically reversed precedent limiting juvenile life without parole. This without admitting what it is doing, according to a scorching dissent by Sonia Sotomayor. Clarence Thomas, with characteristic bluntness, calls for the Montgomery case which Kavanaugh distinguishes be simply reversed. Sotomayor, a Bronx-bred judge, rejects that idea, writing "The Eighth Amendment requires that most juvenile offenders be given this small “hope for some years of life outside prison walls.” Montgomery [v. Louisiana], 577 U. S., at 213.":
At his resentencing hearing, Jones told the court, “I’m not the same person I was when I was 15. . . . I’ve become a pretty decent person in life. And I’ve pretty much taken every avenue that I could possibly take in prison to rehabilitate myself.” App. 152. “Minors do have the ability to change,” he reflected. Ibid. He noted in closing, “If you decide to send me back without the possibility of parole, I will still do exactly what I’ve been doing for ten years. But all I can do is ask you . . . please give me just one chance to show the world, man, like, I can be somebody. I’ve done everything I could over the past ten years to be somebody. . . . I can’t change what was already done. I can just try to show . . . I’ve become a grown man.” Id., at 153. Today, Jones is 31. His time spent in prison has now eclipsed the childhood he had outside of it.
Brett Jones, 15 years old at the time of his crime, was represented by the University of Mississippi Law School's MacArthur Justice Center. I am particularly infuriated by the heartlessness of the ostentatiously Catholic conservatives (plus the Episcopalian Neil Gorsuch who studied with Catholic conservative philosopher John Finnis). The latest two Catholics to join the court - Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Barrett joined in the cruel decision - Kavanaugh as author of the majority opinion, Barrett concurring.
- GWC
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