WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to say anew that young people who commit even the most brutal crimes should not be punished as harshly as adults, taking up a pair of cases in which 14-year-olds convicted of murder are serving life sentences with no chance of parole.
The latest in a line of cases asks whether young teenagers facing the rest of their lives in prison deserve the possibility of a second chance. In recent years, the court has ruled out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for young people whose crimes did not involve killing.
Roughly 2,300 people are behind bars for life with no chance of winning their freedom for crimes they committed before their 18th birthday. Seventy-nine of them are in prison for crimes that took place when they were 14 or younger.
The precise contours of an eventual ruling were not apparent after arguments Tuesday, but several justices said they were troubled by the way some states try and sentence young people accused of crimes.
Justice Anthony Kennedy raised the lack of flexibility in sentencing young killers. Several states that try people younger than 18 in adult courts allow for only one sentence, life with no chance of parole, for defendants who are convicted of murder.
Kennedy seemed to indicate he might favor a ruling that gives judges a role in determining an appropriate sentence, “that the sentence cannot be mandatory, but that in some cases it might still be imposed.”
He wrote the earlier opinions holding juveniles less responsible than adults when their sentences are considered. He seemed again to be the pivotal justice in Tuesday’s arguments.
Bryan Stevenson, the lawyer for both defendants, tried to resist Kennedy’s approach, preferring an outcome that would force states to consider parole at some point for anyone with a life sentence who was convicted before turning 18.
Stevenson said the court has previously recognized that it is a “mistake to equate kids with adults. And we don’t have the ability to make those judgments even if we create a different kind of process.”
