Kenneth Jeremy Laird v. Ryan Thornell, Director, Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry, et al.

In 1994, an Arizona judge sentenced Mr. Laird to death for a murder conviction and a total of 129 years in prison for 13 other nonhomicide crimes. Mr. Laird was 17 years old when the murder took place. The judge did not decide the “order” of the two sentences. Eleven years later, this Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), that the Eighth Amendment does not permit executing a person who committed murder before their 18th birthday. In the wake of that decision, the same Arizona judge, believing himself bound as a matter of law to leave the 129-year sentence in place, decided to reformulate the sentence for murder to 25 years to life in prison, the only other available sentence for the murder count. He ran the murder sentence consecutively to the 129-year aggregate sentence for the murder counts. This Court later held that a life-without-parole sentence violates the Eighth Amendment if imposed on a juvenile who has not committed homicide. See Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010). It then also held that a lifewithout-parole sentence violates the Eighth Amendment if imposed on a juvenile who has committed homicide if the judge has no discretion to impose any other sentence. See Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). Later still, this Court clarified that the ordinary sentencing discretion historically exercised by judges suffices to satisfy the Eighth Amendment. See Jones v. Mississippi, 593 U.S. 98 (2021). The question presented is: Does the revised sentence violate the Eighth Amendment?