Can youths who commit murder or other extremely violent crimes in California be sentenced to spend most of the rest of their lives in prison? The state Supreme Court will decide that issue — but without one of its usual participants, Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has abruptly withdrawn his support for longer sentences.
The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited death sentences for defendants younger than 18 when they committed their crimes, and California law and court rulings shield most of them from sentences of life without the possibility of parole. The question now before the state’s high court is whether the lengthy prison terms often imposed in murder cases — 50, 60 or 100-plus years to life — are the equivalent for youths of legally forbidden life-without-parole terms, or LWOP in court parlance.
If the answer is yes, prisoners who were sentenced to those terms as youths would be entitled to new hearings before judges who would reduce their sentences…