State v. Delgado

Under recent changes to juvenile sentencing law, a court may not sentence a juvenile who has been convicted of murder to life imprisonment without parole unless the court considers mitigating factors associated with the juvenile's young age at the time of the crime. In the present appeal, we must determine how these changes in juvenile sentencing law impact individuals who were sentenced before the changes occurred. The defendant, Melvin Delgado, was sentenced to sixty-five years imprisonment without parole in 1996 for crimes that he committed when he was sixteen years old. Although he is now…