ACLU Sues Michigan for Sentencing Children to Life in Prison
The ACLU took aim at Michigan’s sentencing laws today for cruel and unusual punishment in a suit filed on behalf of nine inmates sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as juveniles.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, is part of a national move by the ACLU to deem juvenile lifer laws unconstitutional, reports the Detroit Free Press. Under Michigan and other state laws, 14-year-olds charged with certain felonies must be tried as adults. If convicted, they are sentenced to life in prison without parole, a punishment which cannot be overturned by a judge.
“These life without parole sentences ignore the very real differences between children and adults, abandoning the concepts of redemption and second chances,” Deborah Labelle, lawyer for the ACLU of Michigan’s Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative, said in a statement accompanying the suit, according to the Free Press.
