The Yale Law Journal

Hannah Duncan

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Youth Always Matters: Replacing Eighth Amendment Pseudoscience with an Age-Based Ban on Juvenile Life Without Parole

Hannah Duncan

Existing Eighth Amendment protections force judges to sort children into pseudoscientific categories. An analysis of sentencing transcripts reveals that sentencers routinely rely on unfounded assumptions when sentencing juveniles to life in prison. Following efforts led by formerly incarcerated yout…