In 2010, the United States Supreme Court held that sentencing a juvenile to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a nonhomicide crime was a violation of the Eight Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 176 L. Ed. 2d 825 (2010). The United States Supreme Court went one step further in 2012, finding that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile convicted of a homicide to a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Therefore, a juvenile can still be sentenced to life without parole, but there has to be discretion given to the sentencing Judge as to whether or not to issue such a sentence.
“[O]ur individualized sentencing decisions make clear that a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles. By requiring that all children convicted of homicide receive lifetime incarceration without possibility of parole, regardless of their age and age-related characteristics and the nature of their crimes, the mandatory sentencing schemes before us violate this principle of proportionality, and so the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.” Miller v. Alabama, 567 U. S. 460, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 183 L. Ed. 2d 407 (2012).
The Nebraska Supreme Court recognized and applied the U.S. Supreme Court case law in State v. Castaneda 287 Neb. 289 (2014) when the Court vacated Castaneda's sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and remanded the cases for resentencing. The Nebraska Supreme Court went one step further in State v. Mantich, 287 Neb. 320 (2014) and found that the rule in Miller applied retroactively to Mantich.