CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT: WHY IOWA SHOULD ADOPT A CATEGORICAL BAN ON LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE SENTENCES FOR JUVENILE HOMICIDE OFFENDERS.

In 2012, the U. S. Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama, in which the Court held that mandatory life without parole sentences for juvenile homicide offenders violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In place of statutorily mandated life without parole sentences, the Court requires an individualized sentencing procedure that takes into account youth and the circumstances of the crime as mitigating factors. In doing so, the Court broke with its decisions in Roper v. Simmons and Graham v. Florida. Both cases emphasized the dangers of individualized sentencing procedures for juveniles and chose instead to institute categorical bans on, respectively, the juvenile death penalty and juvenile life without parole sentences for nonhomicide offenders. This Note examines the trio of Supreme Court cases that consider categorical bans for juveniles in relation to the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the trio of Iowa Supreme Court cases that arose in August 2013, after the Supreme Court decided Miller. It discusses the psychological studies and international norms that both courts found persuasive in their decisions and argues why both the United States and Iowa should no longer remain the outliers in the area of juvenile life without parole sentences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]