In this post way back in April 2018, I noted a remarkable Third Circuit panel opinion in US v. Grant, addressing the application of Eighth Amendment limits on juvenile sentences while vacating a 65-year federal prison term for a 16-year-old offender. Among other points, the original split panel opinion in Grant held that “lower courts must consider the age of retirement as a sentencing factor, in addition to life expectancy and the § 3553(a) factors, when sentencing juvenile offenders that are found to be capable of reform.” But six months later, as detailed in this October 2018 post, the active judges voted for rehearing en banc in Grant upon the government’s petition and the original opinion and judgment were vacated.
Now, nearly three years later, the en banc Third Circuit has finally ruled in favor of the government US v. Grant, No. 16-3820 (3d Cir. Aug. 16, 2021) (available here). Here is how the en banc majority opinion in Grant now starts:
A federal court jury convicted Corey Grant in 1992 of homicide and other crimes that he had committed while he was a juvenile. The presiding judge sentenced Grant to life imprisonment under the then-mandatory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Parole is unavailable to those convicted of federal crimes, so the sentence effectively condemned Grant to die in prison — with proof of circumstances warranting compassionate release his only hope.
In 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, which held that the Eighth Amendment permits a life-without-parole (“LWOP”) sentence for a juvenile homicide offender only if the sentencer could have imposed a lesser punishment based on the offender’s youth at the time of the offense. Later, the Court made Miller retroactive to cases on collateral review. Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016). Because Grant’s LWOP sentence...
