[JURIST] The Supreme Court of Florida [official website] on Thursday ordered re-sentencing hearings [opinion, PDF] for four individuals who were convicted of felonies as juveniles. The court ruled that new sentences must comply with two US Supreme Court [official website] decisions. One of which says juveniles cannot be sentenced to life in prison if they have not killed someone, and another, Miller v. Alabama [SCOTUS backgrounder], which ruled life-without-parole sentences are unconstitutional for juvenile murderers. The Florida Supreme Court decision orders new sentences for Rebecca Falcon and Anthony Horsley, who were involved in two separate murders, and two other individuals who were given effective life sentences for felonies in which victims were not killed.

There has been much commentary written on this issue both before and after [JURIST comments] the Miller decision. The case was heard in conjunction with Jackson v. Hobbs [SCOTUSblog backgrounder]. During arguments before in Supreme Court regarding Miller, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, “What’s the distinction between 14 and 15? … How are we to know where to draw those lines?” Later Miller’s attorney called for 18 to be the minimum age needed to impose a life sentence, and pointed out that most of the jurisdictions that have considered the issue in a legislative context have adopted an age 18 minimum for mandatory life sentences. He offered that those jurisdictions that permitted the imposition of mandatory life-sentences did so through a regime that transferred juveniles to the adult criminal justice system where they are exposed to mandatory life sentences, not because of the express will of the people or their legislators to impose mandatory life sentences on juvenile offenders. In 2013 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held [JURIST report] that the ruling in Miller does not apply retroactively and that juveniles convicted of murder were not entitled to re-sentencing hearings.