People v. Gutierrez/Moffett: California Supreme Court Holds No Presumption of an LWOP Sentence for Juveniles

On May 5, 2014, the California Supreme Court announced that for 20 years, courts had been erroneously construing the state’s juvenile life-in-prison-without-parole (LWOP) statute, incorrectly employing a presumption in favor of a sentence of life without parole for 16- and 17-year-olds convicted of homicide under particular circumstances. In the consolidated cases of People v. Gutierrez