Please read and share my newest at DIGBoston.  As Massachusetts Reconsiders Life Without Parole for 18 to 20-year-olds, Will Race Matter? begins:

“A potential history-making hearing was held before the seven justices at the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on Feb. 6, as two linked cases called for an end to mandatory life without parole sentences (LWOP) for “emerging adults,” those who were 18 to 20-years-old at the time of their crime.

These cases spring from Diatchenko v. District Attorney, the historic 2013 Massachusetts ruling in which the SJC ordered that any life-in-prison sentences for juveniles (those under 18 at the time of their crime) without parole possibility were unconstitutional, i.e. constituting cruel or unusual punishment. Following that decision, 66 juveniles became eligible to see the Parole Board.

Ending the sentence of LWOP for emerging adults would impact approximately 200 people currently in the Mass prison system, nearly half of whom have served at least 25 years behind bars. They would be able to petition the Parole Board to serve the remainder of their sentences in the community with supervision.” MORE