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1 1 (October 7, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/goveauz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ *Research Service Mathena v. Malvo -A Challenge to Life Without Parole for the Juvenile D.C. Sniper October 7, 2019 On October 16, 2019, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in Mathena v. Malvo. Mathena may be of general interest in the D.C. area because it involves a challenge to the criminal sentence of Lee Boyd Malvo, one of the Beltway snipers. But the case also raises a novel legal question concerning the scope of Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana, in which the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment limits the circumstances where juvenile offenders may be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This Sidebar first surveys key Eighth Amendment jurisprudence relevant to Mathena, before providing background on the case and outlining the parties' arguments before the Supreme Court. The Sidebar concludes by discussing possible outcomes in the case and their implications for Congress. The Eighth Amendment The Eighth Amendment, which applies to both the states and the federal government, provides: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The Supreme Court has interpreted the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments to categorically prohibit the use of certain forms of punishment that superadd terror, pain, or disgrace, such as drawing and quartering, hard and painful labor, and revocation of the citizenship of a natural-born citizen. In addition, the Court has held that certain punishments that are permissible in some circumstances are nonetheless unconstitutional as applied to particular classes of defendants. For example, the Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits imposing the death penalty on cognitively disabled defendants or on any defendant who has not committed homicide. One class of offenders that has been the subject of considerable Eighth Amendment litigation is juvenile offenders-a category that includes any criminal defendant who was under eighteen years old at the time of the offense, regardless of whether the defendant was tried as an adult. In the past decade and a half, the Supreme Court has issued several opinions limiting the criminal punishments that may be imposed on juvenile offenders. First, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court held that juvenile offenders may not constitutionally be sentenced to death. Five years later, in Graham v. Florida, the Supreme Court held that juveniles may not be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10350 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress