The accused Santa Fe shooter will never get the death penalty. Here’s why.

Mugshot of 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, suspected of killing at least 10 people at Santa Fe High School May 18. Mugshot of 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, suspected of killing at least 10 people at Santa Fe High School May 18. Photo: Galveston County Sheriff's Office Photo: Galveston County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close The accused Santa Fe shooter will never get the death penalty. Here’s why. 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

The high school junior accused of gunning down 10 students and teachers at a Santa Fe school is facing a capital murder charge - but he’ll never face the death penalty, even in Texas.

Some day, he’ll even be eligible for parole.

Though Dimitrios Pagourtzis was charged as an adult and jailed without bond, even if he’s found guilty he can’t be sentenced to death because of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And in the Lone Star State, he can’t be sentenced to life without parole as the result of a 2013 law that banned the practice for minors.

“In Texas, after the Supreme Court’s decision, they passed a law that basically says that it’s a life sentence if you’re under 18 at the time of the crime,” said attorney Amanda Marzullo, executive director of Texas Defender Services. “The Court has said that it is cruel and unusual to execute an individual who is under 18 at the time of the offense.”

The Santa Fe High School student admitted to the mass shooting that killed 10 and wounded at least 10 others early Friday, according to court documents. He planted fake explosives and selected his targets so as to spare the students he liked, he later told police.

READ MORE: Perry forced to commute teens' death sentences

For an adult, that sort of crime could lead to the death chamber. Murders involving multiple victims can be charged as capital offenses, and for adults that leaves two options: death or life without parole.

At one time, those options were both on the table for teens, too. But then in 2005, Christopher Simmons, a Missouri killer condemned to die, won a landmark case in the Supreme Court.

After surveying practices in death penalty states, the justices decided that the national consensus was against executing minors. Only a few states - including Texas - were the outliers still carrying out death sentences for those convicted of crimes committed as minors.

Aside from considering prevailing norms, the court weighed in on traits that make teenage criminals different - and possibly more sympathetic - than their adult counterparts.

“The court looked at teen offenders and said that juveniles are categorically different from adults in several very important ways,” said Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Among those considerations: teens were more immature, more prone to peer pressure and more likely to have a shot at rehabilitation, the justices said.

“The court was aware that some kids may do horrible things,” Dunham said. “And some individual kids might have sufficient moral culpability to be punished as adults. But as a class, the courts said, the distinctions between juveniles and adults were so significant that juveniles should not be subject to the death penalty.”

Before the court’s decision, Texas had been the biggest executioner of juvenile offenders, Dunham said. Across the nation, there were 22 convicts executed for crimes committed as juveniles - and more than half of them were in Texas.

After the court eliminated the practice, in June 2005 Gov. Rick Perry commuted a slew of death sentences to life, removing 28 prisoners from death row, including 12 from Harris County.

Then in 2012, the Supreme Court took it one step further when the justices struck down mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. The following year, Texas legislators passed a law making life with parole - instead of life without parole - the only sentencing option for minors charged with capital crimes.

For life sentences where parole is an option, Marzullo said, the first chance at release comes after 40 years in prison.

Whether or not he’s ultimately convicted, the accused Santa Fe shooter will be behind bars for the foreseeable future.

During his first court appearance Friday night, a judge opted to hold him without bond.

"At the moment he's in solitary confinement," Judge Mark Henry said after the teen's first court appearance Friday evening. "He's going to be here a while."