Overview of Graham v. Florida
The Court Prohibits Life Without Parole for Nonhomicide Minors
In Graham v. Florida (2010), the United States Supreme Court considered whether sentencing a juvenile to life without parole for a nonhomicide conviction violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Following its precedents, the majority opinion considered whether the punishment was proportional to the offense. The Court’s proportionality cases consider either the application of a sentence to a defendant in a particular case or to a category of offenders. Because this case involved a particular type of sentence as it applied to a class of offenders, the majority determined that a categorical approach was appropriate. Under that approach,…
