On August 6, 2024, the ACLU-NH and other groups filed a “friend-of-the court” brief seeking to end New Hampshire's cruel and unusual practice of sentencing juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole (“JLWOP”). In our brief, we argue that, as a categorical matter, JLWOP sentences violate Part I, Article 33 of the New Hampshire Constitution, which bans “cruel or unusual punishments.” Also joining the brief are the National Association of Social Workers (including its New Hampshire chapter), the Disability Rights Center-NH, the New Hampshire Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and New Hampshire Legal Assistance.
Despite decades of consensus that children are less culpable than adults and more capable of change and rehabilitation, New Hampshire to this day allows for the imposition of this irrevocable punishment on juveniles before the age of 18 if they are certified as an adult — including when the person was as young as 13. In allowing for this uniquely harsh sentencing practice, New Hampshire is now a clear national and international outlier. No country in the world other than the United States allows children to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Within the United States, a majority of states have now eliminated this punishment, and it has become exceedingly rare. New Hampshire is among just a handful of states that allows for the imposition of such a sentence.
Moreover, judges who are asked to impose this sentence both in New Hampshire and in the minority of states that still allow this practice are forced into a game of impossible guesswork, attempting to forecast who will turn out to be “irreparably corrupt” or “permanently incorrigible” — a prediction that even expert psychologists cannot make with any confidence or reliability. The result is that a defendant who was a child when the offense was committed faces a sentence that not only is exceedingly severe, but also largely arbitrary.
As further explained in the brief, the punishment of youth in this way is intolerable in a civilized society. It does not serve the state’s interests, it undermines respect for the rule of law, and it denies children who are capable of change the opportunity to ever demonstrate their rehabilitation. The New Hampshire Constitution — and specifically its prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment — was written to protect the people of our state, including our children, from such a practice. The time has come to do away, once and for all, with sentencing children in New Hampshire to die in a prison cell with no hope of ever being even considered for release.