PHILADELPHIA.- A man that has been in a Philadelphia prison since the age of 16 for his role in a street slaying has filed petition for his release in the wake of the Supreme Court decision that ruled any law that hands down a juvenile with a life-time sentence without the option of parole unconstitutional.
Tyrone Jones filed for appeal Monday. He was convicted of first degree murder in 1973 in a Philadelphia street slaying incident. Jones was 16 at the time. Now 56, he claims that the state law leaves juveniles convicted of first degree murder with the choice of life-time in prison or death without any option of parole.
According to the Supreme Court's decision in a 5-4 vote earlier this month state laws cannot be sentence juveniles to life in prison without the option of parole. Justice Elena Kagan who wrote the majority statement said "we 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 punishment'," according to the Associated Press.
Marsha Levick, the co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, tells CBS, "We're going to see a myriad of (state) responses, but with so many of them in Pennsylvania, we want to get it right, and see that it's fair and (within) the spirit of the court's decision."
The state of Pennsylvania currently has around 2,100 juvenile prisoners serving life-time sentences.
The Supreme Court ruling invalidates such laws already existing in 28 states. The case of Tyronne Jones will establish whether the ruling is applicable to current prisoners serving life-time sentences or merely to future prisoners.
The decision however, does permit judges to sentence a juvenile in a murder case to life in prison without parole, but only in individual cases. What the ruling declares is that States cannot pass any laws that automatically impose it.
