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**US youths can no longer be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes other than murder, the Supreme Court has ruled. **The court upheld an appeal by a Florida man who was sentenced to life at the age of 17 for armed burglary.
His lawyers argued that the sentence infringed the US constitution’s banning of “cruel and unusual” punishments.
The Supreme Court said 129 US youths were currently serving such sentences - 77 of whom were in Florida.
The US was thought to be the only country in the world to allow such sentences.
‘Rights violator’
Terrance Graham, now 22, had been jailed for violent burglaries committed when he was 16 and 17.
His lawyers appealed against his sentence, saying it breached his rights under the constitution’s Eighth Amendment.
A lower court had rejected his appeal, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision in a 32-page document.
“The constitution prohibits the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide,” stated the court document.
“A state need not guarantee the offender eventual release, but if it imposes a sentence of life it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term.”
One of the Supreme Court judges who disagreed with the decision, Justice Clarence Thomas, openly criticised the court for imposing “its own sense of morality and retributive justice”.
But rights groups, who frequently criticise US criminal justice policies, renewed their attacks on the country’s system.
“The United States is the world’s worst human rights violator in terms of sentencing young offenders to life without parole,” said Alison Parker of Human Rights Watch.
In addition to the juveniles serving life with no parole for lesser crimes, more than 2,000 are serving the same sentence for murder.This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
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