Cite as 2015 Ark. 277
- The Court thus vacates Gordon's sentence of life imprisonment without parole imposed by the Crittenden Circuit Court and remands the matter to that Court for appropriate resentencing proceedings.
The State now brings this appeal.
In Miller v. Alabama and its companion case, Jackson v. Hobbs, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012), the Supreme Court of the United States consolidated two cases for review of the constitutionality of mandatory sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for crimes committed by juveniles. The court summarized its decision as follows:
The two 14-year-old offenders in these cases were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In neither case did the sentencing authority have any discretion to impose a different punishment. State law mandated that each juvenile die in prison even if a judge or jury would have thought that his youth and its attendant characteristics, along with the nature of his crime, made a lesser sentence (for example, life with the possibility of parole) more appropriate. Such a scheme prevents those meting out punishment from considering a juvenile’s "lessened culpability" and greater "capacity for change," Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 130 S. Ct. 2011, 2026–2027, 2029–2030, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010), and runs afoul of our cases' requirement of individualized sentencing for defendants facing the most serious penalties. We therefore hold that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments."
Id. at 2460. Notably, Jackson v. Hobbs was an Arkansas case on collateral review. On remand from the United States Supreme Court this court reversed the denial of Kuntrell Jackson's petition for writ of habeas corpus and issued the writ. Jackson v. Norris, 2013 Ark. 175, 426 S.W.3d 906. We further remanded the case to the Jefferson County Circuit Court with instructions that the case be transferred to the Mississippi County Circuit Court and instructed that a sentencing hearing be held in the Mississippi County Circuit Court where Jackson was to have the opportunity to present for consideration evidence that would
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