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NACDL is committed to enhancing the capacity of the criminal defense bar to safeguard fundamental constitutional rights.
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During the next 18 months, the work of NACDL’s Juvenile Justice Committee will focus on the landmark decision in Graham v. Florida, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that adolescents who commit non-homicide offenses cannot receive life without the possibility of parole (LWOP), and must be given a meaningful opportunity for release.
Of the 2,500 people in the United States who have been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes committed before they were 18, two-thirds of them are concentrated in just five states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Louisiana, California, and Florida. There are thousands more children across the country sentenced to “virtual life” sentences of 60, 70, 80, or 100 or more years.
Brief of Juvenile Law Center, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, et al. as Amici Curiae on Behalf of Appellee (full list of amici in appendix to attached brief).
Presentation given by Stephen K. Harper