The Supreme Court had previously ruled in Miller v. Alabama in 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole for juvenile offenders was considered cruel and unusual punishment outside of extreme cases of permanent incorrigibility, and made this decision retroactive in Montgomery v. Louisiana in 2016.

[6] The ruling of Miller v. Alabama was made retroactive to all previous cases in the Supreme Court's decision Montgomery v.

[7] The decision of Montgomery barred the use of life sentences without parole "for all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility".

Justice Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion that "Determining the proper sentence in such a case raises profound questions of morality and social policy.

The States, not the federal courts, make those broad moral and policy judgments in the first instance when enacting their sentencing laws.

[11] She continued that "The question is whether the state, at some point, must consider whether a juvenile offender has demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation sufficient to merit a chance at life beyond the prison in which he has grown up.