Crime

Supreme Court Says Prisoners Can Seek Parole Who Were Sentenced to Life as Juveniles

Published

10 years ago

January 28, 2016

David G. Savage, L.A. Times

The Supreme Court opened the door Monday to possible parole for hundreds of aging prisoners across the nation who are serving life terms for homicides committed when they were under age 18.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices said these prisoners can take advantage of an earlier ruling that called it cruel and unusual punishment to send a juvenile criminal to life in prison with no chance for parole.

Since then, California and most other states have given such prisoners a new sentence or provided them with a right to seek parole. But several states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, have refused to reopen these old cases.

Monday’s decision gave new hope to a 69-year old Louisiana inmate who shot and killed a police officer in Baton Rouge in November 1963, days before President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Henry Montgomery was 17 then and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has played the key role in a series of decisions that have restored the principle that young offenders should not be treated the same as hardened adult criminals.

In Monday’s opinion, he said these prisoners do not have an automatic right to go free, but they do have a right to a parole hearing or a new sentence that limits their prison terms.

Henry Montgomery has spent each day of the past 46 years knowing he was condemned to die in prison,” Kennedy said. “Perhaps it can be established that, due to exceptional circumstances, this fate was a just and proportionate punishment for the crime he committed as a 17-year-old boy.”

But “children are constitutionally different from adults in their level of culpability,” and “prisoners like Montgomery must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption, and if it did not, their hope for some years outside prison walls must be restored.”

His opinion in Montgomery vs. Louisiana was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Kennedy spoke for the court in 2005 when the justices abolished the death penalty for juvenile murderers, and again in 2010 when life terms for juvenile offenders, except for those convicted of murder, were deemed cruel and unusual punishment.

Four years ago, the court in an Alabama case said that even young offenders convicted of homicide should be rarely, if ever, sentenced to a life term with no chance for parole. But at the time, the court did not say whether its ruling must apply retroactively to old cases, the issue that was resolved Monday.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., who disagreed with the earlier rulings, dissented on Monday.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

Published

1 week ago

December 25, 2025

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

2 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.