United States Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi

In April 2021, the United States Supreme Court decided Jones v. Mississippi, 141 S.Ct. 1307 (2021), which held that the Constitution allows judges to sentence juveniles to life in prison without making special findings so long as the judge had the option of imposing a lesser sentence. Jones argued that a sentencing judge should still be obligated to make a special finding that the juvenile is “permanently incorrigible” before imposing a life sentence, but the Court obviously disagreed. In other words, a sentencing court may sentence a juvenile to life in prison without any “incorrigibility” findings so long as the sentence wasn’t a mandatory sentence.