Florida at center of Supreme Court ban on juvenile life sentences (Shameless)

[IScreamSundays]

Source: Miami Herald

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Florida judges have imposed the lion's share of juvenile life sentences without parole, accounting for 77 of 129 such sentences nationwide, according to research by the high court and Paolo Annino, a professor at Florida State University's Public Interest Law Center who has been researching juvenile lifers for more than a decade.

Of the 77, eight were sentenced in Miami-Dade, and another eight were sentenced in Broward.

``None of us are the same people we were as teenagers,'' said Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez. ``This court's decision is consistent with well-established research that a teen's brain is not as developed as an adult's and that teens have a greater capacity for rehabilitation over time. When it comes to children, sentencing should not be irrevocable.''

Said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein: ``The Supreme Court could not be more right. . . . It defies any sense of proportionality and fairness for a child to be sent to prison for life without parole for anything short of killing another human being.''

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Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/17/1634373/florida-a...

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